Emma Swan's Magic Hour
by Dani-Ellie03
Summary: What the hell else could Emma do with her magic if she actually set her mind to it? Maybe it was time to start practicing again, like she did with Killian that night at Granny's. (or, the Charming family, Captain Swan, and magical hijinks.)
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Emma Swan's Magic Hour  
**Summary: **What the hell else could she do with her magic if she actually set her mind to it? Maybe it was time to start practicing again, like she did with Killian that night at Granny's.  
**Spoilers:** Set post-3x22, "There's No Place Like Home."  
**Rating/Warning: **T, for language and probably innuendo, because, y'know, Hook. Family bonding, Captain Swan fluff, and magical hijinks abound.  
**Disclaimer:** _Once Upon a Time_ and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox, building sand castles while waiting for them to come back out to play. (aka hiatus is sure to kill me so I'm just passing the time. ;))  
**Author's Note:** I've had the idea for this story since Emma's little magic show at Granny's in 3x18. I wanted to wait to see how the season ended before I wrote anything (because if I had to go AU with it, I wanted to know before I started writing). Thankfully, canon ended up working out quite nicely for my story purposes! I have plenty of magical fun planned, but if there's something y'all want to see, let me know and I'll see if I can work it in. Feedback makes every day like Christmas! Enjoy. :)

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Emma Swan's first brush with the amazing things her magic could do outside of a crisis happened completely by accident.

It happened that first night back from her own personal Hill-Valley-circa-1955, otherwise known as the Enchanted Forest of the Past. The Enchanted Forest of the Present was a friggin' wasteland, but the one of the past … well, let's just say she finally understood how it got its name.

That night, she'd watched the Evil Queen burn her mother at the stake. That night, her mother had survived against all odds. And that night, Emma had finally found what she'd been looking for her entire life.

After righting the timeline, making it back home, and running into her parents' arms and squeezing them like the lost little girl she'd been, Emma hadn't wanted to leave their sides. She'd dragged Killian back into the diner with her, and she'd stayed tucked into the booth with her family across the table from her and Killian squeezed in next to her.

Henry had gone off with Regina for a bit but eventually he returned to the party, stating that she'd said she wanted to be alone. Emma felt awful but at the same time, she truly felt in her heart that saving Marian had been the right thing to do, complications and consequences be damned. And honestly, she just wanted to enjoy this one night of peace with her family. She could worry about what to do about and for Regina in the morning, but for this one night, she was going to bask in the afterglow of finally finding a home.

The party began to wind down, and soon enough, only Emma, her parents, her sleeping baby brother, Henry, and Killian remained in the diner with Granny and Ruby. The second Emma and Killian stood to take down the decorations, Granny shook her head, clucked her tongue, and shooed them all towards the door. "It's late," she said, a smile at the little family evident behind her characteristic Granny toughness. "The decorations will hold until the morning."

The family thanked her, both for hosting the party and for allowing them to come back to clean up in the morning, and exited the diner. By silent agreement, Emma followed her parents to Snow's station wagon. She still had a room at the inn, of course, a holdover from those few days when Henry's memories were lost to him. Tonight, though, she didn't want to stay at Granny's. She wanted to go home.

Killian walked beside Emma but when they got to the car, he smiled at her. "Good night, Swan," he said, giving her a gentlemanly nod. Then he turned to head back into the diner and, she assumed, up to his room.

Clearly, he didn't want to impose. Well, screw that. Emma reached out and latched onto his hand, tugging him to a surprised stop. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" she asked.

With one look into his eyes, she made it crystal clear that he was coming with her. She didn't want to leave his side, either, not tonight. Not after what he'd done for her. And with one look into her eyes, he made his gratitude and his love for her crystal clear as well.

Emma pretended not to notice the way her mother raised her eyebrows at her father when she opened the car door and gestured for Killian to climb inside, and she pretended not to notice how her father smirked in response. All that mattered as they piled into the station wagon, her baby brother swaddled up in blankets and buckled tightly in his car seat, was that they were together.

They were _all_ together.

That had been a few hours ago. Now everyone was snuggled under blankets in a darkened apartment, Snow and David in their room with baby Neal, Henry up in the loft, and Killian on the couch. The only one awake was Emma, who was far too keyed up and excited to sleep.

She was silently moving around the kitchen in search of a snack; Enchanted Forest food still left a bit to be desired and she'd been too high on family and home and Killian to eat at Granny's. Just as she opened the cabinet to scrounge for _something_, preferably sugary, the unmistakable sound of a fussing baby caught her attention.

Emma closed the cabinet and crept into her parents' room. Baby Neal was indeed squirming in the bassinet, but his fussing hadn't yet woken her parents. With an odd, foreign sense of sisterly and daughterly duty, she decided to let her exhausted parents sleep.

Cooing softly to Neal, she gently lifted him out of the bassinet. "It's all right, baby," she murmured as she carried him from the room. "What's wrong, huh? Tell your big sister what's wrong."

His diaper lacked the telltale fullness of needing changing, and she didn't think he was hungry because it wasn't time for his next feeding. So now it was time to play the game of Figure Out Why the Fussy Baby Is Fussy. Memories assaulted her, memories of those harried nights with Henry as a newborn. Memories, she remembered with a pang of sadness, that weren't real.

Real or not, though, those memories gave her experience, and she rocked Neal as if by rote, trying to quiet him before his whimpers woke their parents. A newborn Henry used to like when she babbled at him … or, more likely, he'd liked when Regina babbled at him, and Regina had simply imparted those memories on Emma.

Ugh, having memories that weren't real totally sucked. The point was, as far as she knew, babbling to a baby worked on some level, so maybe Neal just needed to hear a soft, friendly voice. "It's okay, Neal, it's okay. Hey, I think you need a nickname, huh? What do you think?"

Though he was still whimpering, Neal looked up at her with big blue eyes. Emma could practically feel her heart melting as she stared into her baby brother's teary eyes. "Yeah, you need a nickname, don't you? Your nephew has one, you should have one, too."

Since the sound of her voice was indeed calming him, slowly but surely, she kept talking. "How about goober? No, that's not right. You don't strike me as a goober. I can't make sport or buddy work. Maybe squirt?"

To her utter shock, her brother stopped fussing, just for a moment. "You like squirt?" Emma asked in amazement. She lightly grasped Neal's flailing little hand and smiled softly when his little fingers curled around her own. His eyes locked on hers as she caressed his fingers with the pad of her thumb. "All right, then, squirt it is."

For the next few minutes, she continued to murmur softly, trying to let her voice soothe him. It seemed to be working, so it was a surprise to her when, as she paced towards the living area from the kitchen, he started getting fussier.

Emma's brow furrowed as she headed back to the kitchen. Maybe he was hungry after all. She opened the fridge to check for an emergency bottle, and instantly, Neal went quiet. Well, that didn't make sense. If he was hungry, he wouldn't have calmed until that bottle was in his little mouth. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth – baby rule number seventeen: never question why a fussy baby quieted down – Emma closed the fridge.

Instantly, Neal squirmed and started whimpering again.

_All right, squirt, what the hell?_ she thought, frowning down at her little brother.

Emma opened the fridge a second time, for no real reason other than the action had calmed him before. Once again, Neal went silent.

Okay, seriously, what in the fresh hell? Did he like the cold air from the fridge? After taking a moment to think of what difference the open fridge could possibly make to the baby's environment, she gasped in sudden comprehension. It wasn't the air; it was the light. "You don't like the dark," she murmured to him.

The realization sent a bittersweet memory to the surface. His namesake hadn't liked the dark, either. Emma cringed as remembered teasing him mercilessly about his dislike of the dark. Her seventeen-year-old self had been amused by the thought of a grown man not liking the dark and had, in fact, found it kind of cute. After her week in the Neverland perma-dusk, though, she could understand why Neal, who'd spent far longer in Neverland at a much younger age, hadn't been all that fond of the dark.

Her brother squirmed in her arms, returning her attention to the matter at hand. What the hell was she going to do now? She couldn't stand here with the fridge open until he fell back to sleep, and turning on any of the other lights downstairs would wake up the whole apartment.

Just as she was fixing to head out to pace the hallway under the safety lights until Neal went back to sleep, she caught a glimpse of a soft white light out of the corner of her eye.

Light that was not coming from the fridge. She looked down to find that the illumination was coming from _her … _her right palm, to be exact.

"Holy shit," she murmured in astonishment, then winced. Thankfully, her little brother was quite a ways away from parroting back language he'd heard. That said, holy friggin' _shit_. Her magic was still so new to her that it kind of freaked her out, especially when it went and did things on its own like this.

And okay, yeah, she knew it didn't do it on its own. She somehow was doing it herself, but it was completely unconscious, coming from base instinct and … again, holy shit.

She shifted Neal in her arms and was surprised to find that her baby brother was now completely calm. He appeared to be mesmerized by the soft light emanating from his sister's hand. "Yeah, you and me both, squirt," she muttered, mostly under her breath.

Feeling a sudden need to sit, Emma carried him over to the sofa and eased down on the end cushion by Killian's feet. "It's all right, Neal," she whispered to her brother, trying not to wake Killian as she tucked her legs underneath herself. "Your big sister's got you. I'll keep you safe, and I'll chase away the darkness for you."

The magic-driven light was indeed the answer. Emma watched as Neal tried to keep his little eyelids open and eventually gave up the fight, drifting off to sleep surrounded by comfort and warmth and soft white light.

Even after he was asleep, Emma didn't move, nor did she release the light. She was perfectly content to just hold Neal and have a few quiet minutes with him. She stared down at him in the soft illumination, seeing bits of Henry in his little face, picking out familiar features of his – and her – parents.

And that was when it hit her: _she had a baby brother_.

All her life, she'd wanted this. She'd wanted home and family. She'd wanted siblings, _real_ siblings, real siblings who wouldn't leave when a social worker decided to move them to another house.

And now she finally had it. She had home and family and a real sibling. It was unconventional, to say the least, but it was _hers_.

"You're bloody brilliant, Swan, you know that?" an accented voice whispered, drawing her from her reverie.

She turned her head in the direction of the voice and found a sleepy Killian staring at her, a contented smile on his lips. She gave him a smile in return as she rested her head against the back of the sofa. "Sorry if we woke you."

"Not to worry, love. The young lad's very lucky. Not every older sister in the world can give her brother a magical nightlight."

A proud grin tugged at Emma's lips as she gazed down at her sleeping brother.

Then something else struck her: if she could give her brother a magical nightlight without even thinking about it, what the hell else could she do if she actually set her mind to it? Maybe it was time to start practicing again, like she did with Killian that night at Granny's.

At the very least, practicing would strengthen her energy reserve. She'd severely underestimated how exhausting sustaining the nightlight for so long would be. Still, she didn't want to let it go; she didn't want her brother to be in the dark. She could feel her eyes closing and knew on some distant level that she needed to get up, but she lacked the energy to do so.

Just a few more minutes. She'd get up in a few more minutes.

After what seemed to her like mere seconds, she felt someone gently slip Neal from her still tight grip. She blinked her eyes open to find her father smiling down at her proudly. "You're off duty now, big sister," he whispered.

"'Kay," she mumbled sleepily. "Just a heads-up: you might want to go out and get the little squirt a nightlight."

"Will do," he chuckled. "Get some rest."

Emma nodded and, with her brother safely in her father's arms, finally released the light. Since she didn't have the energy to move from her spot, she decided to lie down right where she was. She curled up on her side, pulled a blanket down from the back of the couch, and covered herself up. "And Emma?" David – no, _Dad_ – murmured.

"Hmm?"

"You're lucky the pirate's asleep."

He said it teasingly with just a hint of seriousness, which made her swallow a grin. "Mm-hmm," she mumbled, hopefully giving off the impression that she was more asleep than she really was. Because, whether David pitched a fatherly fit or not, she was _not_ moving. The exhaustion from holding the squirt's nightlight was completely worth it, but it also meant that heading up to the loft was not a thing that was going to be happening any time soon.

She had to work hard to swallow a snicker when Killian nudged her foot with his through the blankets, out of her father's view. So much for the pirate being asleep.

When David tiptoed out of the room, leaving his soon-to-be-sleeping daughter on the couch with a sleeping – or so he thought – pirate-turned-hero, Emma and Killian shared a quiet snicker. "Your father quite obviously adores me," he whispered, making her choke on a snort.

Was this how sneaking around with a boyfriend as a teenager would have felt?

After a moment, the two of them settled back down. "G'night, Killian," she murmured, her eyes sliding closed.

"Good night, love."

_Tomorrow, magic practice begins_, Emma thought as she drifted off to sleep, her feet still touching Killian's through the blankets.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Holy crap, guys! Thank you so much for the reviews (20 on a single chapter is _insane_!) and the follows and favorites! My inbox had to pretty much throw its hands up in resignation over the sheer amount of notifications rolling in, haha. Y'all seriously rock. Hope you enjoy the breakfast hijinks just as much! :)

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The bright morning sunshine streamed in around the edges of the window shade, shining right down on Emma's face. She groaned softly as she flung an arm over her eyes, shielding them from the onslaught of light. It was too little too late, though; she was officially awake ... and uncomfortable. Heaving a sigh, she removed her arm and blinked her eyes open.

All at once, she understood why she was uncomfortable. She and Killian were still sharing the couch and at some point during the night, she'd draped her legs over his. An embarrassed flush colored her cheeks as she tried to pull herself together carefully so as not to wake him.

_Tried_, apparently, being the operative term, because his eyes slowly opened at her movement. "Good morning, love," he murmured, a little smirk on his lips.

Oh, whoa, wait a second. She knew that smirk, that shit-eating, I'm-about-to-tease-you-mercilessly smirk. The clarity in his supposedly sleepy eyes was the final clue. "How long have you been awake?"

The smirk grew wider. "Long enough to know that my legs fit under yours quite nicely and that you mumble nonsense aloud when you're dreaming."

Her cheeks flushed an even darker shade of pink. She just hoped neither of her parents had come out in the middle of the night to find them all tangled up in each other.

Heaving a sigh, she pushed herself off the couch and shuffled into the kitchen. Killian followed her, telling her to sit while he got breakfast going for the family. "I didn't know you can cook," she said as she eased down on a stool at the kitchen island.

"One learns quickly on a ship."

Yeah, she could see that. Out on the open ocean for weeks at a time, cooking rations was the only way to have a hot meal of any kind.

And then she remembered. She was supposed to be starting magic practice today, wasn't she?

While Killian worked on gathering what he needed for breakfast, Emma crossed to the cabinets, retrieved a bowl and a box of Cheerios, and sat back down at the island. She poured herself a small bowl of cereal, set the box aside, and, much to Killian's confusion, shut her eyes. "What the hell are you doing, Swan?"

"Shh. I'm practicing."

"Are you planning to make those little rings disappear?"

"Shh!"

She concentrated. After a moment or two, her muscles relaxed and she could feel the magic within her beginning to swell. It was the oddest feeling, like a little jolt of static electricity followed by a rush of warmth, as if the magic carried through her very veins.

And in a way, it did. She was born of it; magic made up who she was. Not just the Savior, but Emma.

The warmth rushed now, and she knew she was ready. Just one extra little moment of concentration, and …

"Mom?"

A started Emma shot her head up, which, with her magic at release point, resulted in a mini volcano of dry Cheerios erupting from her bowl. Her gasp of surprise turned into a heavy sigh when she heard both a bleary-eyed Henry and a rather amused Killian share a snicker. "_Damn_ it."

"Let me guess, love," Killian said as he reached over to pick a Cheerio out of her hair. "That is not what you were trying to do."

"No, it wasn't," she grumbled, collecting the spilled cereal on the island Cheerio by Cheerio and tossing them back into the bowl.

"What _were_ you trying to do?" a sheepish Henry asked. He bent down to pick up the Cheerios that had fallen to the floor and dropped them into the trash. "And since when do you eat Cheerios?"

"You used to eat them, too, kid," she teasingly reminded him. The light smirk dropped from her face, however, when she remembered that her memories of giving Henry Cheerios as a toddler weren't real. From the barely there confused frown on his face, she could tell that he, too, was having trouble discerning whether or not he really liked Cheerios all those years ago.

In an effort to see what all the fuss was about, Killian reached into the bowl, snatched a Cheerio, and popped it into his mouth. "These little rings taste like cardboard," he said, his disgust quite clear on his face. "This is worse than that bologna garbage those officers forced on me in that brig in New York. Do people really ingest them?"

Emma swallowed a chuckle. "People really do ingest them. Plenty of adults eat them for breakfast, and they're commonly given to little kids because they're an easy snack. That said, I was actually trying to turn them into Froot Loops."

Henry blinked at her in surprise, but as her words settled, an excited grin formed on his lips. "Can you really do that?"

She shrugged. "Not a clue."

"Well, if anyone can, Swan ..." Killian said as he whisked the eggs, his voice soft and supportive. She had a sudden flash from when she tracked him down by the harbor, when he told her that it was about time she embraced her magic.

She felt a smile tug at her lips, a smile that grew a little wider when he added, "Do you need us to do anything?"

"Just … be quiet and don't laugh at me, okay?"

Henry grinned excitedly. "Okay."

"Whatever you need, love," Killian agreed.

And so, while Killian put together a sure-to-be delicious breakfast, Henry plopped down on the stool and Emma squared her shoulders to prepare herself. Time to try again.

She shut her eyes and concentrated, trying to force the magic deep within her to the surface. It took a little bit of trying to ignore the sheer ridiculousness of it, but after a minute or two, she was visualizing the Cheerios transforming into Froot Loops so hard she could practically taste them.

The magic began to stir within her, a faint burbling in her stomach that slowly grew into a churning, and there again was that jolt and the familiar rush …

"Emma?"

For the second time that morning, her concentration shattered. And for the second time that morning, there was a Cheerios volcano. Emma snapped her eyes open and looked up to find her parents standing in the doorway, her squirming baby brother cradled in her mother's arms. They were both working to swallow chuckles at the cereal explosion and they both clearly thought that the three people in the kitchen had lost their minds.

And yet, all Snow managed to get out was, "What on earth are you doing? You don't even like Cheerios."

Emma's shoulders slumped. Damn, she was oh for two now. "I was trying to turn them into something more edible."

Her parents were obviously confused, and neither one of them looked like they were at all comfortable with the idea of Killian making himself at home in their kitchen. Sighing again, Emma gathered the spilled cereal and dumped it back in the bowl before wrapping her hands around the edge of the bowl and standing. "Forget it. It's apparently not going to happen, and it was a stupid idea anyway."

Both Snow and David opened their mouths to reassure her but it was Killian who caught her attention by grasping her elbow and tugging her to a stop. "If you believe it won't happen, Swan, then it won't. But if you believe it will ..."

In his eyes, Emma saw absolute conviction. Ridiculous though it may have been, he truly believed she could turn her Cheerios into Froot Loops. Words filtered up from her memory banks, words spoken when the stakes were infinitely higher: "I've yet to see you fail."

And if he believed in her then, believed she would succeed in rescuing Henry from Pan's clutches, then surely he believed in her now, even if all she was trying to do was trade one cereal for another. "All right," she said, looking him in the eye. "I'll give it one more shot."

She saw her parents exchange a glance, her mother once again raising her eyebrows at her father and her father smirking in return. Then they fully entered the kitchen, apparently surrendering themselves to the idea that a pirate was going to cook them breakfast while their daughter attempted a far sillier version of turning water into wine.

Snow took a seat at the table so she could nurse the little squirt, and David gathered plates and glasses from the cabinets to set the table while Killian cooked. When Henry nodded encouragingly at her, Emma closed her eyes and concentrated. Third time was the charm, right?

She visualized and focused, and soon enough, she felt the magic burbling in her stomach again. The burbling grew steadily into a churning and then the jolt that filled her with the familiar rush of warmth. There was another little jolt, and in that moment, Emma knew.

It was done. It had worked.

When she opened her eyes, she did indeed find herself staring down at a bowl of Froot Loops. There was not a Cheerio to be seen. She glanced up at her family and worked to hide a smirk. They all looked gobsmacked.

_Well, at least I know none of them just swapped bowls on me,_ she thought, swallowing a snicker.

"That's very impressive, Emma," Snow said after the shock work off. A proud grin played at her lips as she stared at her firstborn.

"It's more than impressive," David said, pride of his own sparkling in his eyes.

"It's awesome!" Henry exclaimed, making everyone laugh. "Just think about it, Mom! Gramma's never going to be able to force vegetables on you again. You can just change them into anything you want!"

Snow's eyes widened as a disappointed look flitted across her face. Emma smirked; she was sure that her mother was now envisioning all her careful, balanced meal-planning going right out the window when Emma transformed like, turnips into ice cream or something.

"Hold on, we need to play with this," Henry giggled. He hopped off the stool and dashed over to the refrigerator. He pulled a bundle of asparagus spears from the crisper, carried them back to the island, and set them in front of Emma. "Try this."

Asparagus spears, huh? The Froot Loops were at least the same shape as the Cheerios. What did she like that could in any way resemble asparagus? After a moment of thought, she grinned.

With a little flick of her wrist, she transformed the asparagus into Pixie Stix. "This. Is. Awesome," Henry said, grabbing one of the Pixie Stix from the pile.

"Emma ..." Snow warned, but Henry, apparently, was just getting started.

He pulled all of the vegetables out of the crisper for Emma to change. The bag of carrot sticks became a bag of Twizzlers. Celery stalks became extra-long Milky Ways. Snow's brand new head of iceberg lettuce became a very large, impossible to eat Jawbreaker.

Snow and David had allowed it partly because it was indeed impressive but mostly because both Emma and Henry were getting a kick out of it. Killian was clearly amused as well, though his amusement dampened a bit when Emma turned the pepper and onion he had pulled aside for the omelets into a mound of jelly beans. By the time they ran out of vegetables to change, it looked like a candy store had exploded in the kitchen.

"Now comes the hard part," David said when everyone's laughter had died down. "Changing it all back."

Emma's heart skipped a beat. She hadn't exactly considered the possibility of changing it back. She hoped it was even possible because she would pretty much owe her mother an entire farmer's market otherwise.

She met Killian's eyes and he gave her an encouraging nod. After nodding back, she shut her eyes and concentrated. It was decidedly less fun to think of candy turning back into vegetables than it was thinking of turning vegetables into candy, which made it a little bit harder to connect with her magic.

But connect she did, and when she was ready, when she felt the warmth was just the right temperature, she opened her eyes and flicked her wrist. Gone was the veritable Halloween haul on the island and in its place was the farmer's market.

Henry shot her a cheeky smile. "Great job, Mom, but I liked it so much better when they were candy."

"I did, too, kid," she sighed.

As Henry put all the vegetables away – minus a pepper and an onion for Killian's omelets – David stepped up to his daughter and ran his thumb over her cheek, causing Emma's breath to catch in her throat. "That was wonderful, Emma."

"It was," Snow agreed from her seat at the table. The pride and love swimming in her eyes sent a smile to Emma's lips. Then Snow's lips curled into a teasing smirk. "But if you ever try that during a meal, you'll be in a world of trouble."

"Yes, Mom," Emma sighed with a teasing roll of her eyes.

All right, so maybe she wasn't going to be able to change all her healthy food into junk food but at least she knew she could, which was somehow sweeter. And if she could amuse her family in the meantime – with a side of driving her parents nuts, of course, as a well-timed transformation during a meal would surely do, trouble or no trouble – well, then, that was sweetest of all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** You all are much too kind. Thank you again for the reviews and alerts and favorites!

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Who knew that pirates were so good at making omelets?

_Well_, Emma silently amended, _pirates were only good at making omelets after getting used to a modern stovetop_. "What the hell did you cook on before?" she'd asked when Killian sheepishly admitted he hadn't the faintest clue how the range even turned on.

"A grate or a griddle over a fire," he'd told her.

Henry's eyes had widened in shock. "You lit the _Jolly Roger_ on fire just to cook?"

A look of pure horror had crossed Killian's face at the mere thought of lighting the _Jolly Roger_ on fire, making Emma swallow a chuckle. "Bite your tongue, lad! We had a fire pit, a box of sand where we lit the fire. We never stoked an open fire on rough seas, of course, but a hot meal on a calm evening was a treat."

"Well, in this world, the heat comes from gas or electricity," Emma had said. She'd shown Killian how to turn the burners on, and as soon as heat had begun rising from the frying pan, she'd smiled at him. "I assume you can take it from here?"

And take it he had. He'd made Emma pretty much the best pepper, onion, and cheese omelet she'd ever eaten. Judging by the empty plates in front of her entire family, everyone else's omelets had been just as good.

"Thank you for breakfast, Hook," David said as pushed his plate away. "You didn't have to cook for us, but I'm glad you did."

Killian nodded in acknowledgment but Henry jumped in before he could say anything in return. "He gave you a break, Gramps!"

"That he did," David replied, shooting a teasing grin around the table. "It's not easy keeping this apartment fed."

"Well, if _someone_ would relinquish control of the kitchen every once in a while," Emma interrupted, staring pointedly at her father, "I could make breakfast, too."

Her parents exchanged a vaguely horrified glance at the notion of Emma making breakfast for the family. "Hey," she continued with a mildly offended huff, "maybe I wasn't the best cook in the world before, but I have eleven years of fake memories of feeding myself and the kid under my belt along with one year of real ones. I'm actually a fairly decent cook now."

"It's true," Henry spoke up, nodding in agreement. "She makes _great_ pancakes. They're better than Granny's!"

"I wouldn't say that too loudly, lad," Killian chuckled. "The woman does have werewolf hearing, remember."

Henry gulped at the mere idea of Granny finding out that he thought Emma made better pancakes than she did.

Just as everyone's chuckles were dying down, baby Neal began to fuss. A quick rocking of the tableside bassinet did nothing to calm him, so Snow pushed herself up from the chair. "That's apparently my cue," Snow said as she gathered her whimpering son in her arms. "I think Mr. Fussypants needs changing."

Emma gaped at her mother. "Don't do that to him. I beg you."

"Don't do what?"

"Call him Mr. Fussypants. The cutesy baby nicknames aren't okay. Let the kid have some dignity, for crying out loud."

Snow smirked at her daughter. "You would have been Miss Fussypants."

And right there, Emma swore her heart stopped beating for just a second. Snow hadn't really just said that in front of _everyone_, had she? Emma's eyes instantly shot to Killian, who was trying – and not exactly succeeding – to swallow a snicker. Oh, she was _never_ going to live this down. "Oh my God, no, I wouldn't have been," Emma sputtered, feeling the heat creeping up her cheeks. "Stop. Just stop."

Apparently, one was never too old to be embarrassed by one's parents. Good to know.

Snow, who had followed Emma's gaze to Killian, cringed. She rounded the table and kissed the top of Emma's head in apology. "I'm sorry, honey. How about if we stick with prince and princess for your nicknames, hmm?"

"That's much better," Emma agreed with a soft smile up at her mother. Which was a concession she never thought she'd make, by the way. Pet names weren't exactly Emma's thing, but then again, she'd never had anyone care enough to give her cute little pet names before. She found, to her utter shock, that she kind of liked them.

Not that she had any intention of admitting that to anyone, of course.

"Okay, then, I think the little prince needs changing," Snow amended, returning her daughter's soft smile. "I'll be right back. Thank you again for breakfast, Hook."

After Snow disappeared into the bedroom with _Mr. Fussypants_, David stood as well and wrapped his hands around the edge of his plate and his glass to take them to the sink. And right there, Emma saw opportunity.

Not only was it time for round two of magic practice, she was also looking to redeem herself from Miss Fussypants. "No, wait," she said, looking her father in the eye. "Let me try something first."

She knew she could poof items because she'd done it before, but the only one in the room who'd witnessed it was Killian. A somewhat smug grin tugged on her lips as she focused on David's glass, and with a flick of her wrist, the glass disappeared from the table and materialized with a soft clatter in the sink.

David appeared dumbfounded. An awestruck Henry muttered, "Whoa."

Emma and Killian shared a smile. "Henry, will you wash, please?" she asked.

He grinned at her when he realized she meant to magically clear the entire table. "You bet!" he exclaimed, dashing over to the sink.

Now it was time to up her game a little bit. She'd poofed single objects plenty of times, but clearing the table piece by piece was going to take a while. If she wanted to do it in any kind of timely manner, she needed to try multiple things at a time.

Starting small was probably the smartest option, so she focused on her knife and fork. She shut her eyes and smiled when she felt the initial jolt of her magic warming up. When it was at just the right temperature, she opened her eyes and flicked her wrist. Sure enough, both fork and knife vanished and rematerialized in the sink. "You got them right next to the glass, Mom!" Henry exclaimed, his eyes sparkling in excitement.

David was still staring at her with a combination of pride, love, and complete shock. Killian, on the other hand, heaved a vaguely bored sigh.

All right, what the hell was his problem all of a sudden? When she kicked his leg under the table, silently asking that very question, he just smirked at her. "This is old hat for me, love," he teasingly reminded her. "A knife and a fork aren't exactly as impressive as a mug of chocolate or a hook, are they?"

Oh, he wanted something different, did he? Something more impressive than a knife and a fork at the same time? Well, she could give him different and impressive, all right.

Emma squared her shoulders, shut her eyes, and concentrated. There was the jolt and the warmth but this time she waited. She waited until she felt the second jolt, the one that let her know she was one hundred percent ready. Then she opened her eyes and once again flicked her wrist.

All five plates disappeared from the table, just as she'd wanted. However, to her horror, they didn't materialize in the sink. Oh no, they materialized to the right of the kitchen island ... about six feet in the air.

"No!" Emma cried, jumping to her feet. They'd all shatter if they fell to the ground from that height!

To everyone's shock, the plates actually responded to Emma's command. They hung in midair as if simply waiting for instruction.

Emma felt her jaw drop open. Holy _shit_!

"Um, Emma?" David said softly, eyes darting from the hovering plates to his daughter and back again. "What–"

"Shh!" Emma hissed in response, her gaze never leaving the dishes. "If I lose my concentration, they're going to fall."

She knew she needed to do _something_. Poof them out of midair and into the sink or redirect them with a wave of her hand or _something,_ all of which she was reasonably sure she could actually do. The only thing was, her focus was the only thing keeping those dishes in place. Any attempt to shift that focus in any way onto something else could cause them to go crashing to the ground instead and quite frankly, Emma was afraid to move.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Killian had stood as well. He and David had both narrowed their eyes in thought but must have come to the same conclusion at the same time, because realization lit both their faces. It was Killian who spoke. "Love, do you think you can hold the dishes long enough for us to collect them?"

If the grin on David's face was any indication, they had in fact had the same idea. "What, you're going to just grab them out of the air?" Emma asked. Could they even do that?

"It's worth a shot," her father added. "The only other options are moving them yourself, letting them fall, or standing there for all eternity holding them in place."

Though it was clearly a joke, the very thought of standing there for all eternity holding the dishes in place made Emma whimper. She could feel her magic weakening; the exhaustion was setting in already. She was going to have to let them go soon, whether she wanted to or not, just because the amount of energy needed to hold them was off the charts. "Yeah, I think so. Just … hurry."

The guys dashed across the room, David and Killian readying to pluck the plates out of the air above their heads. Henry, on the other hand, had to slide a chair over so he could reach them. "We go on three," David said, clearly thinking that grabbing them all at once would be less confusing for Emma. "One … two … three."

Henry and David each took hold of two of the plates while Killian grabbed the last one. As soon as the guys had the dishes in hand, Emma released her magic and plopped back down in her seat at the table, breath heaving and energy spent. The guys set the plates in the sink and Henry got busy washing.

After Emma caught her breath, she stood again and gathered the rest of the silverware from the table the old-fashioned way. "I, um, guess I wasn't ready for that one," Emma said sheepishly as she set the utensils in the sink.

"My apologies for baiting you, love," Killian said, giving her a reassuring smile as he gathered the glasses from the table. "You did well, though, and you'll get there eventually."

David stepped up behind her and comfortingly gripped her shoulders. "Of course you will. And the pirate's right, you held those things up long enough for us to swoop in for the rescue. All in all, it could have been much, much worse."

_That's very true_, Emma thought as she pulled a dishrag from the drawer. If the kid was washing, she was drying.

"What could have been much, much worse?" Snow asked, returning to the kitchen with a freshly changed Neal in her arms.

Emma shot a frantic look at her father. Not that, in the grand scheme of things, Snow would have cared that much about broken plates, but Emma couldn't help but feel like a little kid who'd broken some sort of house rule and was hoping her mom wouldn't find out. "Never mind, my dear," David said to his wife while giving his daughter a surreptitious wink.

A relieved and grateful smile tugged at Emma's lips. The fact that she'd almost broken five of Snow's plates was a secret that was safe with her father, at least.

"And now if you'll all excuse _me_ this time," David continued as he grabbed his jacket off the hook by the front door and shrugged it on, "I'm going to take my lovely daughter's advice and go pick out a nightlight for our little prince." With a promise to be right back, he headed out the door.

He must have already filled Snow in on Emma's magical nightlight from the night before because as soon as he was gone, Snow softly said, "Thank you for calming Neal down last night, Emma. That was really wonderful of you."

"It was no big deal," Emma shrugged even though on some level, she knew it was. For one, it had signified acceptance on her part, acceptance of her family and her place within it. But for another, well, she'd given her brother a nightlight with nothing but the palm of her hand and base protective instinct. That was something, all right. "The little squirt just doesn't like the dark."

At that, Snow blinked. "Squirt?"

"Yeah, I gave him a nickname, one that's a bit more dignified than Mr. Fussypants. Kind of like how I call Henry kid, you know? The squirt seems to like it, so it's okay."

A dubious Snow looked down at her son and sure enough, his big blue eyes had found Emma the second she'd called him squirt. "Well I'll be," she murmured in awe. "It seems he does like it."

Emma smiled. "Told you."

Snow returned her smile before carrying Neal into the living room. Killian, who'd cleared the rest of the table, stepped up to Emma and slipped the dishrag from her hand. Before she could protest – since he'd cooked, he shouldn't have to clean up as well – he said, "The lad will wash, I will dry, and you can return the dishes to their places." And then he gave a purposely poor impression of her little wrist flick, suggesting that she should practice magically putting things away.

The smile on Emma's face grew wider. Yeah, she could totally put things away. She'd have to go back to two at a time, though, even if it was old hat for Killian. One mini-almost-crisis was enough for one day, thank you very much.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** So, this chapter totally ran away from me, and every time I tried to edit it down, it just ended up getting longer. Oops? Captain Swan sweetness and mother/daughter bonding, ahoy, because I apparently miss writing Snow/Emma stuffs.

* * *

Killian had once told Emma that they made quite the team, and as their trip to the past proved, they most certainly did. It came as no surprise to Emma, then, that adding Henry to the lineup made their team pretty damn unstoppable. The three of them got the breakfast dishes washed, dried, and put away in record time. As soon as Emma set the last dish on the shelf and closed the cabinet – from the comfort of her stool at the kitchen island, much to Henry's delight – the kid asked if he could call Regina and see if she wanted company.

A stab of guilt made Emma's breath catch in her throat as she nodded her permission. "Thanks, Mom," he said before disappearing upstairs to change out of his pajamas and make his call.

As soon as he was out of her sight, Emma's shoulders slumped. What the hell was she going to do about the Regina situation? Was there even anything she_ could_ do? The decisions that had to be made in the wake of Marian's return were not at all Emma's to make, and truthfully, they were none of her business. Still, she felt so _awful_ that she felt like she needed to do _something_.

At the sight of Emma mentally beating herself up over the Regina situation, Killian let out a soft sigh and eased down on the stool beside her. "None of that, love. This wasn't your fault."

"Certainly feels like it," she mumbled.

It was kind of crazy how fast the high could diminish. One minute, she was on top of the world with happiness and family and the magic coursing through her veins. The next, she was crawling along the bottom of the barrel, heavy guilt and sadness hindering her climb back to the top.

"You saved an innocent woman's life, Swan," Killian argued gently. "There's no shame whatsoever in that. You didn't know who she was."

No, she hadn't known who Marian was when she saved her. All she'd known was that the woman had been forced from her family and sentenced _to death_ simply for protecting Snow White. For protecting Emma's mother. Which meant that by extension, the woman sitting on Enchanted Forest Death Row had saved Emma's life as well. Leaving the poor woman in that cell hadn't been an option. It _never_ had.

Off her silence, Killian spoke up again, his voice soft. "Even if you had known who she was, would that have changed anything?"

Emma didn't even have to think about her answer. "No." And that response only made her feel worse. She wouldn't have even hesitated to destroy Regina's new-found happiness if it meant saving Marian.

And yet, Killian smiled comfortingly at her. "That's because you did what was right, love. Regina was the one who imprisoned Marian in the first place. _Her_ actions led Robin to think his wife dead. You're not the only one who has to face the consequences of her actions in this instance, Swan."

She had to admit, the pirate had something resembling a point. Still, she highly doubted Regina would see it that way any time soon, if ever at all. "It still sucks."

"Aye, that it does, but you're not the one at fault, love. You saved a life. You reunited a family. You acted like the bloody hero that you are." He waited until she met his eyes and smiled before pushing himself to his feet. "Since the lad is changing out of his sleepwear and you and your parents have already changed, it's time for me to change as well. This, unfortunately, means a trip back to Granny's."

Emma felt a stab of something in her heart, something familiar. "At least let me drive you. You can't want all of Storybrooke to think you're doing the Walk of Shame."

Not that they'd done anything to be ashamed of, and not that they could have gotten up to much with her parents and kid in the apartment. As a matter of fact, their first night together as an official … whatever they were had been the most innocent and chaste night Emma had ever spent with a guy.

Always a gentleman, indeed.

"Walk of Shame?" he asked, perplexed.

She sighed. "Never mind." She was not about to explain that phrase to him now, with her mother and baby brother in the next room and her father due back at any moment.

"There's no need for you to drive me. Stay here with your mother and brother." That feeling in her heart now seemed to be building into some kind of panic. Her heart had started to pound and her head had begun to swim. The growing panic didn't abate until he smiled gently and fingered a lock of her hair. "I'll return soon, love."

Only then did Emma recognize that panic in her heart as a kind of separation anxiety. That was why it had felt so familiar. The fear of him – of _anyone_ – leaving was the reason she'd kept people at arm's length for so long in the first place. She didn't want to let him out of her sight, partly out of that familiar fear. But there was also a little part of her that, just like the night before, couldn't bear the thought of separating from him.

And yet, that feeling had gone away the second he'd said he'd come back, which meant she trusted him to not take off on her. It made sense, she supposed; after all they'd been through together, how could she not?

Still, trusting someone had become so foreign to her. She trusted her parents and she trusted Henry but trusting someone else with her heart again? After her track record? It was pretty much a _miracle_.

"You better return," she said, her tone brooking no dissent – even though there was no doubt in her mind that he would. He wasn't going to run, and now, neither was she.

"Fifty-foot seas couldn't keep me away," he teased. Then he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and headed for the door.

Emma just sat and watched him go. It wasn't until the door clicked closed behind him that she realized her mother had probably just witnessed their entire conversation. Sure enough, when Emma glanced over in Snow's direction, Snow very quickly darted her gaze from Emma to Neal.

_Wonderful_, Emma thought with a cringe. She had two options now: carry on as if Snow hadn't just seen everything or be a big girl and talk to her mother. A couple of days ago – or yesterday, she supposed … man, time travel totally screwed with one's head – she would have done the former. Now she no longer had the need to avoid or the desire to run. With a soft sigh, she pushed herself up from the stool, crossed the room, and eased down on the couch next to Snow.

Automatically, Emma reached out to grasp her brother's little hand. His fingers curled around hers, making her grin. God, she loved when babies gripped an adult's finger. "Do you want to hold him?" Snow gently asked.

She nodded almost shyly, wondering how it would have been if the curse hadn't taken her away from her parents. If she'd been two or three when her baby brother was born, would she have been allowed to hold him only while sitting down on a large piece of furniture?

No such precautions were needed now. Snow handed Neal over and Emma got him settled in her arms. "Hey, squirt," she cooed, smiling when he looked her right in the eye.

"He sure loves his big sister," Snow said, her voice tender as she lovingly watched over her two babies.

His big sister loved him, too, though Emma didn't quite know how to say that out loud just yet. Twenty-eight years' worth of loneliness and heartache and fear didn't go away overnight, but like Killian had said earlier, she'd get there eventually.

The fact that she'd been thinking about Killian must have been obvious because Snow said, "Emma, can we talk for a second?"

Another stab went through Emma's heart but this one wasn't separation anxiety. No, it was sheer nervousness. Just like the night before, she felt like a teenager being caught sneaking around with a boyfriend of whom her parents didn't approve.

Then the tone of Snow's voice registered. She hadn't sounded stern or worried or angry or anything of the sort. In fact, she'd sounded … touched. "Yeah, sure," Emma said, shrugging.

"I'm not going to pretend I didn't see you and Hook out on the patio at Granny's last night," Snow said, giving a gentle smirk when Emma's cheeks flushed a light shade of pink, "but I also can't pretend I didn't see the two of you just now. The way he looks at you, Emma … it's the way your father looks at me."

Emma her heart skipped a beat as her breath caught in her throat. Killian looked at her the way David looked at Snow? But that would mean … okay, whoa. She was not at all ready for this. She didn't really know where this thing with Killian was going and she was trying to just kind of take it step-by-step because attempting to define it was flippin' terrifying.

In an effort to set her daughter at ease, Snow smiled. "It's a wonderful thing, Emma. It's nothing to be frightened of."

Okay, what? After all the pushing Snow had done for her to reunite with Neal, Emma hadn't expected her to be so … accepting. "But he's … Hook," Emma stammered.

Seriously, what the hell was going on here? Had she stumbled back into some kind of slightly alternate Storybrooke, like how at the end of _Back to the Future,_ Marty's dad was a successful author and his parents were actually happy?

"That he is," Snow agreed, "but I've seen you with him. I know you felt _something_ for him before but something's changed now. I can see it in the way you look at him. You trust him."

Yeah, she did. He'd been there for her and helped her and supported her. He was the only person who'd ever _come back_ for her. Hell, he'd given up his home to bring her to hers. "He saved me, in more ways than one," Emma told her mother, surprising herself with her own words. She hadn't exactly considered it like before, but there it was. "I mean, he came to get me in New York, and he helped me reunite you and Dad in the past so Neal and Henry and I could be born. He saved this whole family, Mom, and I will never be able to thank him enough for that."

From the realization coming over Snow's face, Emma gathered that she hadn't thought about it like that, either. "Nor will I," Snow agreed after a beat of consideration, a soft smile on her lips. "I just have one question: are you happy?"

Part of Emma was afraid to answer. Every other time she'd thought she'd been happy, her happiness had been wrenched from her. However, a large part of Emma – the part that had recognized home and family – was now free, and apparently that freedom was making her throw caution to the wind. She looked her mother in the eye and nodded. "Yeah."

She had parents, a brother, a son, someplace to call home, and something that was brewing between her and Killian that, if her mother was to be believed, could be life-changing, in all the best possible ways. Things were pretty damn good right about now.

Snow's smile grew wider. "Then that's all that matters."

Emma smiled back. For a long moment, the two of them just sat quietly while Neal squirmed in his big sister's arms. Then, without a clue where it was coming from, Emma asked, "Mom? Were you scared? When you realized you loved Dad, I mean."

"Terrified," Snow admitted. "Back then, I was a lot like you, Emma. I thought I was better off on my own, thought I didn't need or want love of any kind. Then I met Charming, and suddenly it was as if everything I thought I knew was wrong. It was absolutely terrifying but we went for it and it's grown into something absolutely wonderful. It's given us so much happiness, and it's given us you and Henry and Neal. When love finds you, Emma, you know it. You just have to be brave enough to let it in."

To Emma's horror, tears had begun to well in her eyes. And to her shock, she heard herself ask, "Do you think I'm brave enough?"

She'd sounded impossibly young and all kinds of vulnerable to her own ears. She must have sounded even more so to Snow, because she reached out to cup Emma's cheek in her palm, a kind, comforting, motherly smile on her face. "You, Emma Swan, are brave enough to do anything you desire."

The tears in Emma's eyes spilled over, and Snow wiped them away with her thumbs. "I'm so proud of you, my princess. You are everything I had hoped you would be and then some. You deserve every happiness, Emma. That's all I've wanted for you from the day I found out you were going to be born. If he's the one who makes you happy, nothing else matters."

Emma sniffled, nodded, and shifted closer to Snow. In response, Snow smiled and wrapped her arm around her baby girl's shoulders. They both let the conversation lapse as they sat cuddled up together on the couch and enjoying each other's company.

Just as Emma was starting to get really comfortable, she remembered: she was supposed to take down the decorations at Granny's this morning! "Oh, crap! The decorations!"

"Go," Snow told her, gently slipping Neal from her arms. "I can keep an eye on Henry until you get back."

"Thanks," Emma said, pushing herself to her feet. A quick glance up at the clock proved that she had like, no time whatsoever. Granny's was opening in ten minutes! Leroy was probably already milling around outside, waiting for the doors to open so he could have his bacon.

She started to take a step towards the door but had to stop short as a wave of dizziness washed over her. She squeezed her eyes shut with a groan and flailed an arm out, trying to find something to grip. The dizziness faded after a moment, and when her vision cleared, she found herself standing smack dab in the middle of Granny's diner.

What. The. Hell?

"Where in the hell did you come from?" a startled, white-faced Ruby asked.

Good question. A second ago, she'd been at the apartment … thinking about how she really needed to get to Granny's in a hurry.

Holy shit, had she just poofed _herself_?! "Uh, I'm not sure," Emma said shakily, somewhat wild eyes darting around the diner. "I was at home and then … I was here."

Her phone rang, startling both her and Ruby. As she withdrew it from her pocket, she saw her mother's picture and number flashing across the screen. With a swipe of her finger, she answered. "Hello?"

"Emma?" came her mother's panicked voice. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Confused, but fine." Confused was something of an understatement, but whatever.

"Oh, thank the gods! You just disappeared in a burst of white light! Where are you?"

A burst of white light? She _had_ poofed herself! Oh, God, this had the potential to be very, very problematic. "Granny's."

There was a pause on the line, and then Snow deadpanned, "That's going to take some getting used to."

"You're telling me."

"Well, as long as you're all right."

"I'm fine," Emma assured her, and now that the confusion and the disorientation were fading, that was almost actually true. "I'll be home soon. Not, you know, blink of an eye soon but soon."

"I get it," Snow chuckled into the phone. "See you in a little bit. Love you."

"Love you, too," Emma replied before ending the call. It hit her a moment later that her mom had just said she loved her and she'd responded in kind. Having a family and someplace to call home would never stop being both mind-boggling and awesome, like the culmination of a lifelong dream.

Then again, for Emma, it _was_ the culmination of a lifelong dream.

Ruby, however, apparently still had plenty of questions. Truthfully, so did Emma. "All right, can we back up a second? _How_ did you get here? You just … appeared!"

"Magic?" a sheepish Emma replied. In any other instance, her response would have been snide. In this instance, well, it was the most logical answer. Which was all kinds of messed up, by the way.

Despite what she herself had witnessed, it took Ruby a moment to realize Emma was being serious. Then she grinned. "You've _got_ to show me that again."

"_Oh_, no." Emma didn't know if she could poof herself on command and frankly, she didn't want to try. Poofing objects was fine. Fun, even. Poofing herself was just way too weird. And disorienting. And stomach-turning. Now that she'd poofed herself once, she had _no_ idea how Regina managed to poof herself here and there without needing to throw up.

When Ruby appeared disappointed that she wasn't going to get to see another magic show, Emma sensed another opportunity to show off. "Want to see something else, though?"

"Sure."

She looked up at one of the crepe paper chains tacked up along the ceiling and concentrated. The chain disappeared from the ceiling and reappeared a moment later rolled up in one of the booths. A slack-jawed Ruby stared at her for a beat, then raised her eyebrows and grinned. "Cleanup's going to be a breeze, isn't it?"

Emma smirked. "You have _no_ idea."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** To misfiredcanon: Thank you. I have FEELINGS about that subject, as is probably obvious. ;) To Leanne: Good point about the clothes. I was building to something, and I think you'll like what you see below. :)

* * *

Cleanup was in fact a breeze when one literally didn't need to do more than lift a finger. While Ruby readied the dining room for the impending breakfast rush, Emma plopped herself down in a booth and concentrated. The mini-disaster with the breakfast dishes had taught her to not bite off more than she could chew but decorations weren't exactly heavy or breakable, and she wanted to try something.

She kept her eyes closed through the first shock of static electricity and the brewing magic warming her veins. When she felt the second jolt, she opened her eyes, took a deep breath, and made the classic "come here" gesture with her right index finger, as if summoning the decorations to her.

They obeyed. Every streamer, paper chain, and balloon disappeared from their places and reappeared across from her in the booth.

Ruby was suitably impressed. "Don't let Granny see you do that," she said once she'd recovered her voice. The older woman, who'd been working in the kitchen and had seen everything anyway, perked up when she heard her name. "She'll put you to work doing housekeeping for the inn."

"I've half a mind to make her an offer as we speak," Granny called from the kitchen, making Emma and Ruby share a snicker.

"If it's a really good offer, I might just take you up on it," Emma replied teasingly.

"No, you wouldn't," Granny smirked. "You wouldn't be happy working in a stuffy old inn all day long. You're certainly your parents' child; none of you like to sit still."

Emma smiled at her. That was definitely the truth.

Ruby ducked into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a large take-out bag. "For the decorations," she said as she handed the bag to Emma. "Just in case you're not quite ready to magic them from here to the apartment."

"Thanks," Emma said. Since she'd misjudged the distance across the room earlier, she highly doubted she was ready to tackle building-to-building magical transport of random objects. The last thing she needed was to try to poof the decorations to the apartment only to end up with them raining down on Main Street or something.

As she stuffed all the decorations in the bag, the realization struck her that Killian should still be there. Well, not _there_, exactly, but at the inn. He was in the immediate vicinity, was her point. If she met up with him, they could make the trek back to the apartment together.

She blinked at the thought. There was that separation anxiety again. Not only was she itching to be with her pirate-turned-hero, she was itching to be back with her family. She wasn't clinging, exactly … more like she still didn't want to let them out of her sight. After being alone for so long, this sudden desire – oh, hell, _need_ – of hers to be around other people was completely foreign and, frankly, kind of scared her a little bit. However, she was trying to swallow that fear because what being with other people afforded her – togetherness and love and comfort and support – were the exact things she'd wanted all her life.

Mind made up, she grasped the bag and turned toward the door. She'd barely taken one step forward when Killian entered the diner, and it took her less than a second to notice that he was wearing the exact same outfit as when he left the apartment. "I thought you were changing!" she cried, bypassing a greeting entirely.

At first he appeared startled to see her there, but once his surprise faded, he smirked at her. "Well, hello, love."

Oh, no, he was not getting out of it that easily. "Hi. I thought you were changing."

He glanced down at his attire before looking back up at her. "I did."

The vaguely perplexed look on his face told her he was telling her the truth. She arched an eyebrow at him. "Seriously? Do you own anything that isn't black leather?"

That teasing smirk was firmly back in place. "One or two items, perhaps."

Emma gave an indulgent shake of her head. Of course. "I hate to tell you, Hook, but that –" She indicated his outfit with her hand, "–is not changing."

"No?"

"Not at all." Then, it hit her. She'd had fun that morning with the vegetables, so maybe a repeat performance was in order. A grin curled on her lips as she shut her eyes and concentrated. She could almost feel Killian and Ruby exchanging a bewildered glance but before either of them had a chance to say anything, the brewing magic hit just the right temperature.

She opened her eyes and with a wave of her hand, she transformed Killian's leather vest into a pale blue long-sleeve button-down shirt. "_That_ is changing," she giggled.

Behind her, she heard Ruby and Granny stifling snickers. Killian glanced down at his new shirt, eyes widening in shock. "Very funny, Swan."

Emma, on the other hand, could only stare at him. That particular color _really_ brought out his baby blues. A button-down shirt didn't exactly go with the leather pants, but really, if it made his eyes pop like that, who the hell cared? Certainly not her.

"Swan?" he asked. Emma blinked as if coming out of a daydream. Only after catching the amusement dancing in his eyes did she realize that she must have completely spaced out for a few seconds. His next sentence confirmed that theory. "I glad you appreciate the view, but you do know how to change it back, don't you?"

"Probably, but I'm not exactly sure I want to."

The smirk on his face informed her that she'd actually said that second part out loud. _Shit_. "What if I want you to?"

"All right, fine," she said, heaving a sigh. With another wave of her hand, she returned the blue shirt to its previous leather incarnation. "You're no fun."

"Oh, I am plenty fun, love," he murmured into her ear, causing her cheeks to burn. Damn him, he was not at all allowed to say things like that with other people in the room. "And if I may be so bold, it is you who doesn't allow fun. My purpose for coming in here was to surprise you with that chocolate drink you like so much. How did you get here so fast?"

Again, she grinned. If he wanted fun, she could give him fun. She hadn't wanted to attempt what she was about to do so soon, but as she was coming to discover, magic was sort of its own natural high. Plus, she could only imagine that the expression on his face if she succeeded was sure to be freakin' hilarious.

She inched closer to him, focusing her magic and lowering her voice to a soft, slightly sultry tone. "I can show you, but we have to get close first."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ruby and Granny exchange a smirk. Oh, yeah, they knew what she was about to do. Poor Killian, however, didn't have the slightest clue. He appeared to be equal parts intrigued, confused, hesitant, and lustful. "That is not at all a problem, love," he said, clearly choosing to go with the playful lust as he closed the gap between them.

He looked so serious and so … eager that she almost felt guilty over what she was going to do to them both. Almost. As soon as he moved into her personal space, she grabbed his hand, shut her eyes, and went for it.

She felt the sickeningly familiar dizziness as a burst of white light washed over them. Killian must have felt it, too, because his hand tightened around hers.

It took less than a second for Emma's feet to hit terra firma. She was surprised to feel herself land; maybe because she was controlling it this time? She did open her eyes before releasing Killian's hand, though, wanting to make sure they'd actually arrived at her chosen destination.

The loft in her parents' apartment filled her field of vision. _Oh, thank God_, she thought, sinking down on her bed. Killian flopped down next to her, both of them slightly out of breath and fighting motion-sickness-induced nausea.

So. Now she knew she could poof herself _and_ someone else. Kickass.

"What in the bloody hell was that?" he managed to croak out. As soon as he noticed where they were, he sat up straight, looking at Emma with eyes wide in wonder. "Did you … transport us here?"

"Yep," she grinned through the nausea. "You asked how I got to Granny's so fast. That's how."

His eyebrows twitched skyward. "That's quite the feat, love, though a little warning next time would not go unappreciated."

"Yeah, I don't exactly plan on making a habit out of it," Emma admitted. "I like my food inside my stomach where it belongs."

He smiled at her. "As do I, love. As do I."

They both waited until the nausea passed before standing up and heading downstairs. It just so happened that David arrived home, a small bag that must have contained the squirt's brand-new nightlight hanging from his wrist, just as Emma and Killian emerged from the loft bedroom.

"It's unusually chilly out–" David said, stopping short when he spotted his baby girl and a pirate descending the stairs from her bedroom, hair slightly mussed from the magic travel and subsequent recovery on her bed. He instantly stiffened, staring daggers at Killian.

Part of Emma was kind of embarrassed – that little part of her that still felt like a teenager sneaking around with her boyfriend – but most of her was annoyed. _Oh sweet Jesus_, she thought, rolling her eyes. Was this how it was going to be all the time? _Because seriously, kill me now_. "Easy, tiger," she said to her father, making sure to sound teasing yet dismissive. "It's not what it looks like."

Thankfully, before David could launch into a fatherly diatribe about how it better not be what it looked like, Snow emerged from her bedroom. "Emma?"

Henry was in the living area playing with Neal, who was settled happily in his bassinet. The nephew/uncle bonding time must have afforded Snow the opportunity for a quick shower, because her hair was still damp. "Oh, hello, Hook," Snow continued. "I didn't hear the two of you come in."

"We, um, didn't exactly use the door," Emma admitted.

A smile curled on Snow's lips but both Henry and David just looked bewildered. A moment later, Henry figured it out. "Oh, whoa, you can poof _yourself_?!" he asked, grinning excitedly.

"And apparently I can take someone along for the ride," she confirmed, more than a hint of pride in her voice. Her parents' loving gazes were filled with pride as well, which thrilled Emma to pieces.

_Huh_, she thought. Apparently one never stopped wanting to make one's parents proud, either. Also good to know.

"You've _got_ to poof me next, Mom," Henry continued, his eyes sparkling in anticipation. "You've just _got_ to."

Emma let out a soft whimper, leading Killian to comfortingly grasp her hand and squeeze. She looked up at him but the teasing expression on his face indicated that although he sympathized, he was going to be no help to her whatsoever in this particular instance. Total payback for poofing him without telling him first, of course.

She would have loved to poof Henry, she really would have. The only thing was, she didn't know if she could poof other people without poofing herself along with them. She was not about to perform that experiment with her kid as the guinea pig, and her stomach was not at all up to another trip. "Maybe in a while, kid," she allowed as she joined Henry in the living room with her baby brother. "It's not exactly easy on the stomach, and if I try it again anytime soon, I'm liable to throw up on either your or my shoes."

Henry wrinkled his nose at the thought of Emma throwing up on anyone's shoes. His shoulders still slumped slightly in disappointment, but since the promise of a maybe was better than an outright no, he took it without a word of complaint.

"Now that that's out of the way," she said, turning her gaze on her father, "I want to see what kind of nightlight you got the little squirt."

After giving Killian one final warning side-eye, David handed the bag over to his daughter. "The store had a ton to choose from but that one just screamed our little prince to me."

The little plastic nightlight Emma pulled from the bag was indeed absolutely perfect for her brother. It was the kind of nightlight she remembered some of the group homes having: a clear C7 bulb, like on the old strands of Christmas lights, screwed into a white base that plugged into the wall. The shield that clipped onto the base in front of the bulb to disperse the light pictured a cartoon sheep with a golden crown atop its head.

Snow peeked over Emma's shoulder and then looked up at her husband with teary eyes. "It's perfect," she said as she stepped up to David and kissed him.

Henry groaned at the public display of affection – he was twelve now, after all – while Killian averted his eyes. Emma watched them for a beat, happiness swirling within her even as tears brimmed in her own eyes because dammit, she'd helped _save_ that public display of affection. Then she pulled herself together, indulgently rolled her eyes, and snarkily intoned, "Ew."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** To misfiredcanon: I completely agree. Accountability is a big part of redemption for me, accountability and remorse and atonement, which we've seen very little of in certain arcs. The past happened, and no amount of skirting or outright ignoring the issue is going to make it not so. I would much prefer to see things actually dealt with rather than swept under the rug. To all y'all: thank you so much for all your lovely reviews and the follows and favorites! I know I say this all the time, but you guys are seriously the best readers ever. :)

* * *

While Henry, Emma, and Killian all squeezed onto the sofa, Snow and David took a sleepy Neal into their room to find the perfect spot to plug in the little squirt's nightlight. Emma could hear her mother's soft voice addressing the baby, asking him if this spot was better than spot or no, wait, that spot right there had to be the best, didn't he think?

Regardless of the fact that Neal couldn't answer and had no real say in the matter, Emma had to admit that the token search for the baby's seal of approval was pretty cute. And hell, the squirt had sorta kinda chosen his nickname the night before when Emma had done the same thing. Who was she to say that he couldn't choose the spot for his nightlight?

In the living room, a comfortable silence had settled over the three of them. To Emma's surprise, it struck her that she could _really_ get used to this. Sitting on the couch with Henry on one side of her and Killian on the other, watching movies or playing video games – oh, they totally had to show Killian video games; he was fascinated enough just by the television – and just spending a (hopefully not-so-rare now) lazy afternoon together.

"Mom?" Henry asked softly, as if hesitant to break that comfortable silence.

"Yeah, kid?" she asked. She shifted on the sofa, noticing for the first time that her hand had found Killian's and their fingers were entwined. When the hell had that happened? A surreptitious glance at Killian out of the corner of her eye proved that he was as oblivious to it as she'd been.

Huh.

"I talked to Mom earlier," Henry continued, drawing Emma's attention back to the present, "and she said she wouldn't mind some company. I told her I'd have to talk to you first but … I can go over there, right?"

Emma's breath caught in her throat. Though she'd given Henry her permission to ask that exact question, she'd kind of been hoping Regina would say she didn't want the company. Ordinarily she would have zero qualms about the kid spending time with Regina; she was his mother, after all. But after the events of last night …

A look of patient and gentle understanding crossed her son's face at the hesitance on hers. "She didn't sound angry or anything, Mom. She just sounded sad. I don't think she's going to anyway, but I won't let her, you know, _do_ anything."

Oh, she trusted Henry completely. It was just that the last time Regina had had her heart broken, she'd cursed an entire population. And yeah, Regina had made tremendous strides and grown plenty from the woman she'd been back then, but … well, Emma's history with her wasn't exactly what one would call easy, and there were things that had happened, horrific things that Emma couldn't just forget.

Basically, there was no telling _how_ Regina would react to this latest curveball. Since Emma was the one who'd pitched said curveball, unintentional curveball though it may have been, she was kind of afraid of the fallout.

And then Killian squeezed her hand, bringing her back down from panic mode. When she looked over at him, the gentle smile on his face grounded her completely. Regina wouldn't hurt Henry. No matter what she felt for everyone else, she wouldn't hurt Henry. The kid would most certainly be all right over there for a couple of hours. "Yeah, kid," she said, once again meeting her son's gaze, "you can go."

Henry smiled at her as he pushed himself up from the sofa. "Thanks, Mom."

When he started heading for the coat hooks by the front door to grab his jacket, Emma let go of Killian's hand and jumped up from her seat. Killian stood as well, though he seemed to have acted more out of reflex than anything. "Wait, you're not going by yourself."

Her kid, her little boy, turned on his heels and gave a very preteen roll of his eyes. "Come _on_, Mom. The Witch is gone and I'm twelve now. I think I can walk down to the house I grew up in by myself."

Okay, he had a point, but while the Witch was indeed gone and he was indeed twelve now, this was also Storybrooke. "Weird shit happens here" might as well have been the town motto. Who knew what other fairy tale disasters were waiting in the wings?

That said, she also knew that arguing with him was only going to cause, well, an argument. She _really_ did not have the energy for an argument. Instead, she went with the only surefire way she could think of to get him to agree to a supervised trip: "Why walk when I can poof you?"

Just as she suspected, the preteen annoyance fled from his face at the notion of magical travel. "Really?" he asked, a surprised and excited smile tugging at his lips. "You're going to poof me to Mom's?"

"_We're_ poofing to the _vicinity_ of Regina's," she corrected, her tone making it crystal clear that it was her terms or nothing. She still had no desire to use her kid as a magical transport guinea pig, so sending him alone was not an option. Her luck, she'd end up poofing him into the middle of the woods or something. She didn't think Regina would take kindly to the two of them just appearing somewhere in the house by magic, either.

Plus, she highly doubted Regina even wanted to see her at the moment, so there was that to consider as well. So yeah, she would poof the kid to Regina's but there were limits, was her point. Henry, being the smart kid he was, nodded in agreement to her terms.

"Are you sure you're up for this, love?" Killian murmured to her.

No, she wasn't sure at all. Her stomach was still a little iffy from the trip back from Granny's and she was kind of tired, but it was too late now. "I'll be all right," she answered, giving him a (hopefully) comforting smile.

He didn't appear convinced but before he could say a word, Snow and David emerged from the bedroom. David was holding Neal now, swaying gently in an effort to rock the suddenly fussy baby to sleep. Upon seeing Henry with his coat on and Emma with hers in her hand, Snow asked, not unkindly, "What's going on out here?"

"Mom's going to poof me over to Mom's!" an excited Henry informed his grandmother.

Snow and David exchanged a glance before turning identical frowns of concern on their daughter. At first, she thought they were worried about Henry going to Regina's as she'd been but while that may have been part of it, she realized after a moment that they were worried about _her_. Part of her was touched by their concern even while another part of her thought they were being a little overprotective. "It'll be fine," she assured them as she shrugged on her jacket. "I'm just dropping the kid off and then walking back. I'll only be gone a few minutes."

Her words seemed to reassure them a little bit. Killian stepped forward to join the magical caravan but Emma shook her head, stopping him in his tracks. "You can't come. I don't know if I can poof two people along with me. Just … stay here."

Something resembling panic flashed into Killian's eyes. "Stay here with your _parents_?" he whispered.

Her parents didn't look any more enthused at the thought of being left alone with Killian without Emma as a buffer. And right then, Emma got an idea.

All three of them were going to _kill_ her, but well, they needed this. "Yep," she said, already beginning to focus her magic. She reached down for Henry's hand and when the temperature of the warmth in her veins was just right, she grinned at Killian and her parents. "I'll be right back. You guys stay here and talk."

She just barely caught the three identical horrified facial expressions as the white light washed over her and Henry.

Henry's hand tightened around hers during that weightless moment of transport, and he didn't let go even after they both landed. Groans escaped their lips as they fought the displacement-induced nausea.

Even with all the undesirable magical poofing side effects, once Henry caught his breath and took in his surroundings, he proclaimed, "That? Was _awesome_."

Though her stomach was still a bit out of sorts, Emma chuckled. "I'm glad you approve, kid."

They'd landed at her chosen destination: the sidewalk a few houses down from the mayor's mansion. Thank God the walk would be brief because her father had been right earlier; it _was_ unusually chilly out. Both she and Henry were shivering by the time they reached the front gate of Regina's house.

Emma saw the curtain in the living room window move, indicating that Regina had been watching for them. Just before Henry went through the gate, he wrapped his arms around Emma in a hug. "What's this for?" Emma asked, automatically returning the embrace.

"I'm just glad we're staying here," he said, looking up at her, "and I'm glad you're happy."

She smiled back at him, held him in the hug a moment longer, and then pulled away, shooing him towards the gate. "Call me when you're ready to come home."

"I will. Thanks, Mom." With that, he passed through the gate and hurried up the walk.

Emma waited until he was safely inside the house before turning away and heading back to the apartment. She only made it halfway down the street before the cold started getting to her. She hadn't exactly dressed for the chill, and at this rate, she would have frostbite in her fingers and toes by the time she made it back home.

Okay, she was exaggerating a little, but the fact remained that the walk to the apartment seemed impossibly long in the cold. There was a fix for that, of course, but she wasn't at all up for it. Then again, she wasn't up for the walk, either.

With a soft sigh, she began focusing her magic in preparation for one final poof back to the apartment. What was the worst that could happen?

* * *

Charming stared at the space his daughter and grandson had occupied just moments ago in disbelief. Had Emma really just _disappeared_ on them, leaving him and Snow alone with Hook? Oh, yes, she had, and she'd done so gleefully. The sly grin on her face and the mischief in her eyes when she disappeared was proof enough: she'd left them alone on purpose.

She'd left them alone to get to know each other without her around. Her heart had been in the right place, of course, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

For a beat, everyone stood around in awkward silence. Then Neal let out a soft cry, which seemed to break the tension in the room at least somewhat. Charming resumed his gentle swaying, hoping that the rocking would give his stubborn son the push he needed to go to sleep. He was only fussing at the moment to keep himself awake, though what he thought he was going to miss by taking a well-needed nap was beyond Charming.

Charming moved around the room while Killian awkwardly perched on a stool at the kitchen island and Snow began making a batch of hot cocoa, just to do something to keep her hands busy. Something came back to Charming then, a memory that, up until a second ago, had been lost to time. A conversation around a fire with a prince trying to save his princess, the one who'd helped Snow White steal his mother's ring.

At the time, the man had just been another prince, a man on a quest to save the woman he loved from the Evil Queen's clutches. The woman had gone by Princess Leia, but she was really Emma. And if Emma was Leia …

He turned and stared at the pirate, realization washing over him like a wave. "You were Charles," he breathed.

Snow looked up from her task and turned a confused frown on him. Hook, on the other hand, let out a soft breath of relief. "Aye."

"You told me … you told me you loved her. You said she was the one who'd made you believe in love again."

"I do," the pirate nodded, sincerity in his eyes. "And she is."

Charming felt a sudden need to sit. He eased down on the stool next to Hook, taking care not to jostle his son, who'd just allowed his eyes to close. "Does someone want to tell me what's going on here?" Snow asked after a beat of weighty silence.

"When we were waiting to rescue 'Princess Leia,' 'Charles' here told me that he loves our daughter."

Snow's eyes widened at the verbal confirmation, though Charming sensed a certain wisdom in her expression, wisdom that told him she'd known as much without it.

"I obviously didn't use those exact terms, but yes, I did," Hook replied. "Dare I hope, then, that you remember what you told me in response?"

And Charming did. He remembered his exact words when he told Charles that if Leia's parents knew how far he'd gone to save her, of course they would approve of him. And that was before he knew that the prince sitting on the fallen log next to him had followed his princess through a portal through time!

He gave the pirate a nod. "All I ask," he said, unable to keep the pleading hint from creeping into his tone, "is that you don't break her heart."

Hook answered immediately and with utter sincerity. "I've no intention of it."

No, he didn't, did he? Charming could tell. He could see it in the pirate's eyes whenever he looked at Emma. He could hear it in his voice whenever he talked to her. He could even see it in the way he gave her those little touches, the same kind of little touches Charming gave Snow.

Killian Jones had no intention whatsoever of breaking his baby girl's heart.

Snow's eyes darted back and forth between her husband and the pirate but before she could even open her mouth to say a word, a bright flash of white lit the living room.

The light cleared a second later, revealing Charming's pale and not at all steady on her feet baby girl. "Emma!" Snow cried, turning off the burner under the cocoa and rushing over to her daughter in one swift motion.

"M'fine," Emma mumbled just before her knees gave out.

It happened so fast that a panicked Snow could only guide her baby down so they were sitting on the floor. Hook rushed over to Emma's other side while Charming tucked a sleeping Neal in the bassinet by the sofa. When he glanced over at his wife and daughter, the tinge of Emma's skin made his heart sink to his stomach.

_Oh_, no. He had to act _fast_.

He ran to the bathroom, grabbed the just-changed wastebasket, and dashed back over to his daughter. In something of a minor miracle, he managed to position it under her chin just in time.

"It's all right, sweetie," Snow murmured, holding Emma's hair out of the way as her stomach emptied. Hook got up to retrieve a glass of water for her, and Charming slid into his spot, comfortingly running his hand up and down his daughter's back.

"Shh, it's all right," Snow continued to murmur, repeating it like a mantra. "It's all right."

When Emma was finished, Hook pressed the glass of water into her hand. Shakily, she took a sip to rinse her mouth, which she spit into the trash can. Then she took another sip, swallowed it, and slumped against Snow with a barely audible whimper. Her eyes drifted shut and her breathing evened out seconds later. Hook gently plucked the still mostly full glass from her hand before it could slip from her loose grip.

"What the hell is wrong with her?" Charming muttered as he slid the wastebasket out of the way, his worried eyes never leaving his daughter, who was now sleeping cradled in her mother's arms.

Snow pressed the backs of her fingers against Emma's forehead. Upon finding no trace of a fever, she frowned, decidedly stumped. It was Hook who rocked back on his heels, an expression of comprehension settling on his features. "It's the magic."

Come again? "_Her_ magic?" Charming asked.

The pirate nodded. "Aye. I know from experience that the magical transport is disorienting. Seasickness multiplied, if you will, which accounts for her bout of nausea. Since her magic comes from within, each use requires energy. A little here and a little there wouldn't have that much of an effect, but cumulatively … I'm wondering if this morning's activities have just been too much too swiftly."

"Oh, sweetheart," Snow murmured, brushing Emma's hair out of her eyes.

Charming let out a heavy sigh. All magic came with a price, and this, apparently, was Emma's. Over time, she would learn to avoid the nausea and the exhaustion, but the process of finding her limits without pushing them was going to be rough.

His poor sweet baby girl.

If Hook was right – and Charming believed that he was – Emma needed rest, which she wasn't going to get sitting on the floor, slumped against her mother. "Let's get her to bed," Charming said softly. "I'm sure she'll feel better when she wakes."

Together, he and Hook shifted a dead-weight Emma out of her mother's arms. Charming tucked one arm under Emma's knees and the other around her back before lifting her off the floor. Then he gently carried her to his and Snow's room. As he got her settled on the mattress, she stirred, her eyelids fluttering open. "Dad?"

His heart leaped for joy at the sweet sound of his daughter calling him Dad. "Shh," he whispered, managing to hold his joy in as he ran a thumb along his stubborn daughter's forehead in an effort to soothe her back to sleep. "Rest now. We'll discuss paying attention to and actually heeding your limits when you wake up."

A tiny smile tugged at her lips at the fatherly tone that had, despite his best efforts, crept into his voice. "Mm-kay." Then her eyes slid closed and she was asleep again.

Charming smiled softly as he spread one of Snow's quilts over her. He pressed a light kiss to her forehead and then tiptoed from the room so she could get her rest.

While he was getting Emma situated, Snow had settled on the couch to watch over Neal and Hook had decided to take care of the bathroom wastebasket. It was an easy enough cleanup, Charming supposed; all he had to do was tie off the bag and take it down to the trash, which was apparently what he was doing now. The liner was missing from the wastebasket and Hook had left the apartment, at any rate.

"He'll be back in a few minutes," Snow said, confirming Charming's theory. "How is she?"

"Sound asleep. She'll probably be out for a little while."

And then it hit him: Henry was at Regina's and both of his children were napping. He and Snow were going to have to spend the next awkward however long alone with their daughter's pirate.

Even though it was not at all how she anticipated it, it looked like Emma was going to get her way after all. The three of them were going to have no choice but to talk now.

Charming shook his head, an indulgent smile pulling at his lips. Oh, his sneaky, sneaky baby girl.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing Emma became aware of was the most painful thing: her head was _pounding_. Everything else, her queasy stomach and the fatigue still weighing down on her body, was mere discomfort. A sound that was halfway between a whimper and a groan escaped her lips as she drew a hand out from under the blanket. She pressed her palm against her forehead and just lay there, allowing herself to sink further into the pillows.

Wait a second. Blanket? Pillows?

Emma dragged her eyes open and pushed herself up on her elbows. On some distant level, she realized that it probably should worry her that such a simple activity seemed so damn difficult. Another thing that should make her worry? She didn't immediately recognize her surroundings. Bed on which she was lying covered with a quilt, hope chest at the foot. Two dressers, clock on the nightstand, and a crib situated along the far wall.

And then she got it: her parents' room. All right, she was not going to admit to _anyone_ that it had taken her an embarrassing number of seconds to recognize her parents' room. And if anyone found out, she was totally going to blame the headache.

Now the big questions: what the hell was she doing in her parents' room, and why did she feel like she'd been run over by a truck? Was she sick? She didn't remember being sick. The last thing she remembered was standing on the sidewalk of Mifflin Street while she prepared herself for the poof back home.

A memory tickled her aching head. No, that wasn't the last thing she remembered. Something had happened after that, something …

"Oh, _shit_," she muttered when it came to her. The poof from Mifflin Street had worked (obviously) but she'd been so disoriented and so exhausted upon arrival that she'd pretty much collapsed. Her head had been spinning and her stomach had been doing somersaults and … oh God.

She'd thrown up. In front of her parents.

In front of Killian.

Fan-freakin'-_tastic_.

Emma flopped back down on the pillows with a groan and pulled the quilt over her head. Maybe she could just stay here for the rest of her life.

What had happened after that? She didn't remember coming in here to lie down. Had she fallen asleep out there, too? If so, someone must have carried her in here and tucked her in. _Great, _she thought_. Just great. Puke all over the living room and then have to be carried to bed like a three-year-old._

Her eyes were just starting to close again when the time she'd caught on the clock registered in her aching brain. Holy shit, she'd been asleep for over an hour! She'd only meant to leave her parents and Killian alone for like, ten minutes. It was pushing eighty now.

Damn it, they were probably ready to _kill _each other. She needed to go out there, act as referee. Though she wasn't physically ready for it in the slightest, she threw the quilt off her face, climbed off the bed, and shuffled toward the living room.

She heard them before she saw them, Killian's accented voice soft but filled with humor as he … regaled her parents with their time travel adventures? And her parents were … laughing?

He was still breathing, so clearly he hadn't told them about their little ploy with his past self, but seriously, what the hell? Emma paused in the doorway, just to make sure she was seeing things correctly. Snow and David were seated next to each other on the sofa, Snow's fingers absentmindedly running over the blanket covering baby Neal in the bassinet. Killian had dragged a chair over from the kitchen table and was currently holding court, much to Snow's and David's apparent amusement. "The expression on her face when she saw the Dark One for the first time was priceless," he was saying, just barely holding back a chuckle.

Oh, great, so he was telling Emma Swan, Fish Out of Water stories about their time travel adventures. But hey, it seemed to be working because her parents were indeed laughing. The three of them actually looked kind of comfortable with each other.

Emma didn't quite know how she felt about this development. Yeah, it was annoying as all get-out when David launched into Overprotective Dad mode as if she were a fifteen-year-old going on her first date, but her parents acting all buddy-buddy with her ... whatever she wanted to call Killian was just weird.

Snow must have looked up and spotted her, because she softly spoke Emma's name, instantly silencing both Killian and David. "I thought you were stirring the last time I peeked in on you," she continued as she pushed herself to her feet. "How are you feeling, sweetie?"

She actually felt like death warmed over, but her response was habit: "I'm fine." She even shook her head, refusing her mother's silent offer of help, which was probably a mistake because the room kind of spun for a second.

Her mother paid her no attention. She walked up to the doorway, took Emma's hand, and began gently leading her into the living room.

Snow leading her by the hand was a little unnecessary but the tiny part of Emma that was screaming at her for even getting out of bed was grateful. As they approached the couch, David stood, silently offering his seat to his daughter.

Again Emma shook her head. Again the room spun. And again Snow ignored her, helping her sit in David's vacated spot while he pulled another chair over from the kitchen table. She shot a helpless look at Killian, who simple shot her a smirk that told her that he thought her parents were handling things one hundred percent correctly.

Great, so not only were the three of them buddy-buddy now, they were ganging up on her, too! This was _not_ okay.

"No, you're not fine," Snow murmured, more to herself than to Emma. She regarded her daughter with sharp, concerned, _motherly_ eyes. Emma could feel her defenses weakening; no one had ever looked at her like that before. No one else's eyes had ever been able to convey the combination of complicated emotions Snow's had just now: the pain came from watching her baby feel unwell, the determination to make it better, and the strength and comfort she was sending Emma's way. It was new and touching and it may have caused her throat to tighten in just the right way to let her know that tears were imminent. "Your head hurts, doesn't it?"

Emma swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded as much as her aching head would allow. "How could you tell?"

"You're squinting. Sit tight; I'll get you some medicine." She patted her daughter's knee and took off for the bathroom before Emma could even open her mouth to insist on getting her own damn headache medicine.

She sighed in resignation, glancing at Killian again. It was only upon spying the concern in his eyes and noticing the identical concern in her father's that she realized how terrifying her reappearance must have been for them.

Aw, _crap_.

Snow returned a moment later with a glass of water and two extra strength Tylenol. She dropped the pills into Emma's waiting palm and handed her the glass. Only after Emma downed the pills did Snow reclaim her seat on the sofa, lightly grasping her daughter's hand as she eased down next to her.

"I'm, um, sorry about earlier," Emma said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to hurl all over the place."

"There's no need to apologize," Snow said gently. "_You_ are our first concern, Emma. We just want to make sure you're all right."

"And you didn't 'hurl' all over the place, Swan," Killian added, a teasing smirk on his lips as he mocked her choice of words. "You 'hurled' right into the wastebasket your father brought you."

Emma felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Okay, no more jokes about her hurling at all. "I'm all right," she said, addressing her mother's point.

Snow had begun running her thumb over the back of Emma's hand. The motherly gesture made Emma's breath catch in her throat.

It was her father, though, who caught her attention. "No, Emma, you're not all right," he said, a hint of fatherly sternness creeping into his voice. Emma gulped, suddenly feeling as if she were about to be grounded for a week. "When you arrive back here sick and barely conscious, you're not all right. Your magic takes a toll on you, and you need to be careful with it. Why didn't you walk back from Regina's like you said you were going to?"

"It was cold," Emma shrugged. Even as the words rolled off her tongue, she knew it was a pitiful excuse. She'd known she wasn't really up for her fourth poof of the morning but she'd done it anyway. Because she was cold. Because it was easy. "I didn't want to walk back in the cold. And honestly, I did it because I knew I could."

"You also knew you shouldn't have, love," Killian said softly. "You knew you were pushing it just by taking the lad to Regina's."

Emma averted her gaze, staring down at her lap. "Honey, we know you're just learning how your magic works," Snow said, her voice gentle, "and we know that it's exciting and new, but part and parcel of learning how to use it is learning when _not_ to use it. You need to pay attention to your limits. We don't like seeing you sick, sweetheart, and there's no need for you to ever feel like that again if you know how to avoid it."

Emma had to admit that they all had a point. She did need to be careful with her magic. She'd known when she was going out with Henry that she wasn't really up for it, and she'd definitely known that she shouldn't have poofed back home even before she did it. Her stomach had been too queasy and she'd been too tired. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Like your mother said," David spoke up, his tone softening, "you don't have to apologize. We just want to make sure that you're taking care of yourself."

She finally looked up at him, a tiny, somewhat shy smile on her lips. "I am. Well, I will be now. I have no desire to repeat what happened this morning, believe me."

"That's what I like to hear," he said, smiling back.

Killian and Snow smiled in relief as well, leading Emma to relax a little on the sofa. Lecture time was over, apparently. Again, was this how she would have felt if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing as a teenager? It was weird and embarrassing and yet somehow kind of touching.

_This family thing is a big giant ball of confusing_, she thought, glancing from her mother to her father.

There was a moment of comfortable silence and then baby Neal, who'd been stirring throughout the conversation, began to whimper. "Uh oh," Snow said, releasing Emma's hand so she could scoop her fussy son up out of the bassinet. "I think our little prince needs another changing."

Before she could stand, Emma said, "Wait." Then she shut her eyes and concentrated.

"Love, you just promised–"

She opened her eyes and looked first at Killian and then at her father and mother in turn. "I'm feeling a little bit better," she said, which was the truth. Her stomach had settled and she didn't feel like she needed to sleep for a few days anymore. The sitting and taking it easy had probably helped a great deal with that. Damn it, her parents did know what they were doing, didn't they? "I just want to try something. If I can't do it, I won't push myself."

All three of them exchanged a glanced. They all must have silently decided to take her at her word because Snow nodded her permission. After giving them a grateful smile, Emma closed her eyes and concentrated.

She felt the first jolt and then she felt the magic flooding her veins. When the warmth was just warm enough, she opened her eyes and snapped her fingers. The finger snap was for more for show than anything, but it worked. A fresh diaper and the container of wipes appeared on the coffee table, much to Emma's delight and everyone else's amazement.

She hadn't made them materialize out of thin air, of course. She'd simply poofed them from their places in her parents' room, but still! "I wanted to try to poof something I couldn't see," she said, a grin tugging at her lips.

Her parents and Killian were staring at her with pride, astonishment, and something else she couldn't quite put her finger on. Then Killian turned to David and said, "You do recall that even Regina couldn't–"

"I know," David said, his voice soft in wonder.

All right, what the hell had Emma missed? "Regina couldn't what?"

"Move something she couldn't see," Snow said, tears of pure love shining in her eyes. "At least, that was what she said when we were trying to save you from the Neverland waters, and you just did it."

Emma felt her jaw drop open. She'd done something Regina couldn't do? On her own? Yeah, she'd worked the mirror magic and Regina hadn't been able to do that, but Regina had also been guiding her.

She closed her mouth but before she could even formulate a thought, David smiled at her. "That's my girl," he murmured, causing an entirely different kind of warmth to flood Emma's veins.

This warmth didn't come from magic. No, it came from being surrounded by love and comfort and from an almost child-like delight that she'd once again made her parents proud.


	8. Chapter 8

Baby Neal did need a changing but that was apparently not why he was crying. A fresh diaper did not soothe His Royal Crankiness in the slightest. Despite Snow's and David's best efforts, his whimpering had progressed to full-on wailing. Snow had tried gently rocking him and David had tried wandering around the room and babbling at him. Snow had tried the baby sway and David had tried the baby jiggle.

Nothing had worked.

It was going on twenty minutes now of incessant baby wailing, and Snow and David were at their wits' end. Emma could practically see the frustration mixing with feelings of failure and radiating off of them. Their little prince was obviously upset about _something_, and neither one of them had the slightest clue what he wanted or how to help him.

Emma exchanged a troubled glance with Killian, who gave her a helpless shrug in return. He was a more than capable pirate captain who could command an entire ship's crew, sail through any storm, and outrun any curse, but screaming newborns were not at all within his wheelhouse.

It made sense, of course. He had even less experience with infants than her parents did. Hell, Emma was the only one in the room with any kind of experience raising an infant, and her memories of raising said infant weren't even real.

Good God, everyone's eardrums were doomed.

But wait a second. Real or not, her memories of soothing a newborn Henry had helped her calm Neal the night before. Maybe she could try again.

The only thing was, she wasn't sure how well her parents would take an offer of assistance. After all, they were the ones who passed their innate stubbornness down to her. That stubbornness was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it led all three of them to fight for what was theirs but a curse because an offer of help could sometimes be taken as a hit to the pride.

When Emma saw tears of aggravation and despair beginning to brim in her mother's eyes, she made her decision. "Do you mind if I try?" she asked shyly, almost hesitantly.

The hesitance, apparently, was completely unwarranted. Gratitude flooded both her parents' faces as David handed the squirming and screaming baby off to his big sister. "Sure thing. Have at it."

Neal's little face was red from his tantrum. "Hey, now," Emma murmured as she got him settled in her arms. "It can't be as bad as all that. What's the matter, squirt?"

She'd hoped that her little nickname for him would have captured his attention at least somewhat, but no dice. Well, crap.

Emma shut her eyes, reaching into her memory banks, fake though they may be, for what had calmed Henry when he screamed the way her baby brother was screaming. Sometimes all it took was gently swaying with him in her arms while sitting on the sofa. Sometimes the only thing that calmed him was a ride in the car. And sometimes baby Henry had just needed to cry and nothing Emma did would make any real difference. He would just cry until he'd cried all the tears he had in his little body.

Neal wasn't quite at the point of crying for the sake of crying yet but he was getting there fast. Just as she was about to get off the sofa to wander around the room even though the wandering hadn't helped her parents any, something else came to her. A real memory, not a pretend one.

Everything else about that day had been lost to time. All that was left was this one singular event and the aftermath. She figured she was about four years old but that was really just an educated guess. One of the bigger kids had pushed her off a swing. She'd cried as any four-year-old would upon being pushed off a swing, and once she'd started crying, she couldn't stop.

She remembered even at that young age not really understanding why she couldn't stop. After sending the kid who'd pushed her inside and making sure Emma wasn't hurt, the director of the group home had told her to stop her crying this instant, which of course only made her cry harder.

Emma had been on the cusp of getting sent inside herself when one of the assistants scooped her into her arms, settled her on her lap, and began running her thumb up and down her forehead. Her only word had been the occasional, "Shh."

Miraculously, it had worked. Emma's cries had dwindled to hiccups and the whole incident was soon forgotten.

Until now. And if a tender touch and soft voice had calmed her four-year-old self, maybe it would work on her baby brother. Emma repositioned Neal in her arms so she could free her right hand and then tenderly ran her thumb over Neal's little forehead, from his hairline down to the bridge of his nose and back again. Just like when the assistant had calmed her, Emma's only word was an occasional, "Shh."

She felt his little muscles relaxing as his cries grew softer. She kept up the gentle caresses and the soft murmuring until he calmed completely. After Neal's whimpering stopped and he blinked away the last of his tears, he looked up at Emma with his big blue eyes. "There, squirt," she murmured, smiling down at him. "I told you it wasn't that bad, didn't I?"

He gurgled at her in response.

Now that her brother was quiet, she passed him back to her mother, who was staring at her with wide eyes. "How did you _do_ that?" she breathed, making Emma swallow a snicker.

"Looks like you've got the magic touch, love," Killian spoke up.

_Oh my God, he did not seriously just say that_, Emma thought, arching an eyebrow at him.

He cringed when he realized what he'd said to the only person in the room who literally had a magic touch. "No pun intended, of course."

"None taken," she smirked. She knew what he'd meant, and besides, it wasn't like "golden touch" would have been any better, considering they'd both actually met King Midas.

Which was all kinds of crazy, by the way.

"Unfortunate pun though it may have been, I'd say 'magic touch' was the perfect description," David said, smiling at his baby girl as he squeezed in next to his wife on the other side of the sofa. "It was certainly magical to watch."

Emma smiled back almost shyly. Her heart was fluttering with contentment. It felt wonderful to have helped both her brother and her parents.

Who would have thought?

She shifted on the sofa, intending to give her parents space with her little brother, but Snow rested a hand on her knee, stilling her instantly. Snow smiled at her, her eyes welcoming, telling her to stay.

Emma exchanged a glance with Killian, whose soft smile as he watched the little family told her that he didn't mind at all sitting by himself for a few minutes longer. His little nod at her when their eyes met was further confirmation, and so Emma stayed.

Now that her little prince was calm, Snow was apparently determined to keep him calm for as long she could. She'd been humming softly but soon her humming shifted to singing. "_Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea_–"

"Whoa!" Emma cried, sitting at attention. "Why are you singing him that?"

Snow blinked at her daughter, clearly surprised by the vehemence in her voice. She exchanged a look with an equally shocked David before refocusing on Emma. "Because it's a song from this world about a magic dragon?"

"Yeah, but it's _sad_," Emma insisted. "At the end of the song, Puff's little human friend grows up and never comes back. You can't sing him that song."

Again, her parents exchanged a glance. David shrugged, indicating that his daughter had something of a point. After a moment of thought, Snow switched to another song that Emma didn't recognize. It must have been some kind of traditional Enchanted Forest song because both David and Killian seemed to recognize it.

Emma idly wondered if her mother would have sung that song to her if the curse hadn't separated them.

Content now to let her parents have a little bonding time with her brother, Emma stood up from her seat and crossed the room. "Hey," she said as she sat down in the chair David had occupied next to Killian.

"That really was quite something, Swan," he said by way of a greeting. "How did you know how to quiet the little lad down?"

A glance at her parents proved they were very much wrapped up in her brother for the moment, which was a good thing, as far as she was concerned. The pain in their eyes whenever she talked about how rough her childhood had been was too much to handle most times. "Someone once did that for me," she said, her voice low so her parents couldn't hear her. "A kid in one of my foster homes pushed me off a swing and I was well on my way to becoming hysterical when one of the assistants calmed me down the way I calmed the squirt down. I was older, obviously, but I figured it was worth a shot."

"Indeed," he replied, a smile pulling at his lips. "Like I said before, magic touch."

And right then, she got another idea. A glance at the coffee table proved that she had everything she needed right in front of her. A couple of Neal's toys (Henry's idea; the squirt was still a couple months away from being able to hold onto toys but the kid insisted on buying them anyway) and her father's keys lay within sight.

Emma grinned at Killian. "Actually, you know what would be a real magic touch? Watch this."

She concentrated on the toys first, a plastic ring with big colorful plastic chain links dangling from it, a yellow rubber ducky, and a more traditional plastic rattle. With just a little bit of effort, she managed to lift all three of them into the air.

"Emma, what–"

Snow's voice almost interrupted Emma's concentration. Almost. "Shh," she replied, stopping her mother's question in its tracks. "You'll see in a sec."

All right, phase one was complete. Now it was on to the harder phase two: getting her father's keys in the air without dropping any of the toys.

With a deep, preparatory breath, Emma split her focus. Half her concentration remained on the three toys already suspended in the air. The other half went toward lifting her father's keys off the table to join the toys.

She lost her magical grip on the keys about halfway up but she managed to catch them before they could hit the table. As soon as she got them level with the toys, she knew she was golden. With a proud grin and a flick of her wrist, she set all four items slowly spinning clockwise.

"Wow," a clearly impressed David murmured. His daughter had just made her baby brother a magical mobile.

"I'm not going to be able to hold it for long," Emma admitted. Just like when she was holding the plates in the air after breakfast, the mobile required a _lot_ of energy and concentration. "I just wanted to see if I could do it in case we ever needed it in a pinch."

"You've got your brother's full attention, love," Killian said.

"He absolutely adores it," Snow added, a smile in her voice.

Emma took her eyes off the mobile just long enough to glance across the room at her baby brother. He was staring at the mobile, mesmerized, just like he'd been staring at the light from her magical nightlight. She smiled, then refocused her attention on the mobile.

She held the mobile in place for a few minutes longer than she probably should have. When the objects began to tremble in the air as they spun, she knew her magic had reached its limit. Summoning the last of her energy, she let all four objects down slowly. As soon as they landed back on the coffee table, she released her magic and slumped back in her chair, exhausted but happy. The exhaustion was totally worth it if it meant getting to see that wonder on her baby brother's face.

When she was a little kid, she'd longed for a big brother or sister to help protect her from the bigger kids and even the adults. When she got older, she used to protect the little kids in the group homes, pretending she was their big sister because she'd never had one of her own.

And now that she was a big sister for real, she was going to make damn sure she was the best big sister any little brother ever had.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Because I feel like I haven't said it in a while: you guys rock. :)

* * *

The peace in the apartment didn't last long. Emma's cell phone rang, which startled baby Neal out of his almost slumber. Apparently the squirt detested being awakened because he started wailing again.

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry," Emma said to her poor parents, who now had to once again try to calm a screaming newborn, as she patted her jeans pocket for her phone. Only there was no phone.

_Shit_. Where the hell was it? And then she remembered: it was in her jacket pocket. The same jacket her parents must have taken off of her when she arrived back from Regina's. God knew she hadn't been in any condition to take it off herself.

She frantically pushed herself up from the chair and followed the sound to the coat hooks. _Duh_, she thought as she dug into the pocket for the phone. Of course one of her parents would have put it away; Snow, probably. The second her hand wrapped around the device she pulled it free and spared just a second glancing at the caller ID. "Hey, kid," she said when she answered the call. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Henry replied, a frown evident in his voice as if he didn't understand why she even asked that question. "You told me to call you when I was ready to come home, remember?"

Actually, she hadn't. Between losing over an hour due to both disorientation-induced illness and magic-induced exhaustion and the baby wailing, she'd completely forgotten. "Oh, yeah."

"Is everything okay over there?" the kid asked.

It struck her after a moment that he could probably hear Neal crying in the background. "It's fine. Your uncle apparently doesn't like being woken up."

"Neither do you."

Her kid was certainly cheeky, wasn't he? "Well, we come from the same gene pool, kid. It stands to reason that we'd have some similarities." She glanced over at her parents and smirked. Snow had clearly decided to cut out the middle man because she was now trying Emma's trick to calm the squirt down. "Anyway, I'm leaving now to get you, so I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Are you poofing here?" he asked excitedly.

Her stomach flip-flopped at the mere thought of poofing anywhere. It was pretty safe to say, then, that she was done poofing for the next little while. "No, I'm picking you up in the car like a normal, non-magical person. I'll see you in a few."

"See you."

Emma sighed at the hint of disappointment in the kid's voice. Clearly she was going to need to explain to him that poofing was not going to become their new regular mode of transportation. She was not about to risk puking all over her intended destination every time she needed to run out on an errand, thank you very much.

"I'm heading to Regina's to pick Henry up," Emma guiltily called over her little brother's wailing. Her guilt turned to relief when she heard a hitch in Neal's cries. The squirt was calming down; he'd probably be silent and asleep before Emma even left the parking lot.

Clearly David had heard the same thing in his son's cries as his daughter had. "Go right ahead," he said softly, smiling up at his daughter. "We'll be all right here."

Emma stepped back into the living room as she shrugged on her jacket and poked Killian's shoulder. "Let's go, pirate. You're coming with me."

"I am?" he asked as he pushed himself to his feet. A smirk pulled at his lips and, out of view of her father, he waggled his eyebrows at her.

The amused smile on her face probably undercut any amount of irritation her rolled eyes were supposed to portray. Damn pirate. She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice so Snow and David couldn't hear. "You're impossible. I _meant_ that you're picking up Henry with me." He grinned, silently telling her that he'd known full well what she'd meant.

Again, damn pirate. Oh, well, his innuendo-laden ways just gave her all the more reason to give him a little startle. "Unless of course you want to stay here with my parents and a screaming baby."

She headed for the door as if to make good on her threat and was not at all surprised to hear him scurrying after her. Apparently staying there with her parents and a screaming baby was not exactly high on his list of fun things to do. "As you wish," he said when he caught up with her.

Emma smirked. One of these days, she really needed to make Killian sit with her and watch _The Princess Bride_.

A little rumble in her stomach made her pull her phone from her pocket to check the time. Just as she'd suspected; by the time she and Killian returned with Henry, it would be time for lunch. She turned at the door, looking back into the living room. Even if Neal had calmed down by then, her poor parents were not going to have the energy to make lunch for an entire apartment full of people. "Since we're going out, we could pick up lunch at Granny's or something, if you want."

An exhausted Snow sent her daughter a grateful smile. "Oh, Emma, that would be wonderful."

Emma returned her smile. "All right, will do. We'll be right back."

She and Killian exited the apartment and headed down to her car. Even though she was making him tag along on this little errand, he was going to have to wait in the car at Regina's. Even taking her niggling fear of Regina's reactions out of the equation, Emma was not about to flaunt her new … whatever in Regina's face when the woman's own relationship had just possibly – probably – been torn apart. By Emma, no less.

After Killian had settled in the passenger seat and Emma climbed in behind the wheel, they took off for Regina's. It wasn't until Emma had pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road that she said somewhat offhandedly, "Okay, so why the hell were you ganging up on me with my parents back there?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that shit-eating smirk pulling at his lips. "Payback for your leaving me with them in the first place. That, and they had a decent point."

Even though he was only pretending to be angry about being left with her parents, she winced. "I didn't mean to leave you with them for so long."

"That is where their decent point comes in, Swan."

Yeah, she supposed so. She'd totally overdone it with the magic and she did need to pay more attention to her own body's signals. That was why they were driving now instead of poofing; she knew her body wouldn't be able to handle the disorientation.

Any other time, she just would have asked Regina if she could expect the motion sickness every time or if it would fade the more she did it. Now, though? She didn't think that wasn't going to be an option for a while. She was on her own, magic-wise.

Killian spoke up again, drawing her back to the matter at hand. "We just wanted to make sure you weren't going to make a habit out of pushing yourself too hard, love. That's not too terrible, is it?"

Or perhaps not on her own. Her family may not have known all there was to know about magic, but they knew her. There was no doubt in her mind that they would help her figure it out and they'd keep her safe while doing so. "Of course it's not," she replied, smiling softly at him.

All her worrying over what to do with Killian while she approached the house to retrieve Henry turned out to be pointless. The kid exited the house with a wave goodbye to Regina before Emma even had a chance to cut the ignition. She let out a breath of relief she hadn't even been aware she'd been holding when she saw that the kid was fine. Physically and emotionally fine. He bounded down the walk and passed through the gate.

Emma exited the car so Henry could settle in the backseat. "Hey, Mom," he said as he buckled his seat belt. Emma climbed back inside, shut the door, and got herself buckled in behind the wheel. "Hi, Killian."

"Hello, lad," Killian said.

"Hey, kid." Emma glanced up in the rear view mirror to make sure Henry was completely settled before pulling the car back out onto the road. "How's Regina doing?"

"All right," Henry shrugged. "She's going to see Robin in a little bit. He got in touch with her while I was there, said he wanted to talk."

Emma and Killian exchanged a troubled glance. Emma hoped that conversation would go well, but if it didn't …

She sighed softly, causing Killian to gently pat her leg with the side of his hook. When she glanced over at him, his comforting smile told her once again not to blame herself. That was easier said than done, but she smiled back anyway before refocusing her attention on the road.

"Mom?" Henry asked, breaking the somewhat tense silence in the car. "I'm kind of hungry. Can we get some ice cream?"

Killian turned and looked over his shoulder at Henry as if he had three heads. "It's cold enough that one can see one's breath out there, lad, and you want to ingest something that has 'ice' in its name?"

Emma grinned. "Oh, it's never too cold for ice cream, is it, kid?" she teased.

"Nope!"

She chuckled, both at Henry's answer and Killian's incredulity, and then took a moment to consider Henry's question. Her stomach had settled and they were going to be waiting a while for their to-go order at Granny's anyway. "Yeah, I suppose we can get some ice cream. We're going to Granny's anyway to pick up some lunch. Just don't tell your grandmother that I spoiled your appetite."

"We're just having dessert first," Henry said with a sage nod.

Sometimes Emma really liked the way her kid thought. She grinned up at him in the rear view mirror and piloted the car to Granny's.

It was only after all three of them had put in their to-go order, piled into a booth to wait, and were poring over the ice cream menu that Emma realized Killian had never had the pleasure of indulging in an ice cream sundae. The dubious expression on his face as he read over the options made her stifle a chuckle.

She nudged his foot under the table with hers. When he looked up at her, she arched an eyebrow at him, as if asking what the problem was. "As I understand it, this ice cream substance is cold, is it not?" he asked.

Henry grinned upon realizing that he was going to witness the pirate's first foray into the world of ice cream sundaes. Emma winked at her kid before addressing Killian's question. "It is cold, yes."

"What is the point, then, of putting something called hot fudge on top of it?" he asked, arching his eyebrow right back at Emma.

Henry bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud while Emma took a sip from her glass of water to hide her smile. "The point is that it's delicious," Henry replied, making Emma almost choke on her water.

Killian remained unconvinced.

When Ruby stepped up to take their order, Emma decided to take matters into her own hands. She ordered a hot fudge sundae with chocolate chocolate chip ice cream for herself and the same for Killian. When he raised both eyebrows at her in disbelief, she just grinned. "Just you wait, pirate. You're about to taste some of this world's magic."

Ruby soon brought out all three sundaes, jimmies already dripping off Henry's sugar-filled concoction of Granny's special vanilla ice cream with chocolate-covered graham cracker chunks mixed in, topped with hot fudge, marshmallow, and jimmies. Henry and Emma dug right in but Killian remained hesitant. He slowly stabbed the long spoon into the ice cream and brought it up to his mouth.

The second the ice cream and hot fudge hit his taste buds, his eyes lit up. Emma and Henry exchanged an amused grin. "Do you like it?" she asked offhandedly.

"I do indeed."

"So what was that about not understanding the point of hot fudge and ice cream?"

"I take it all back," he said, going for another spoonful. "You're absolutely correct. This is nothing short of magic."

Henry spooned the cherry off his whipped cream and popped it into his mouth. Killian's eyes widened. "That little red thing isn't just a decoration?"

"It's a cherry," Henry replied, brow wrinkling in confusion. Surely the pirate had seen cherries before.

"Cherries are darker."

"These ones are special," Emma informed him. "They're processed differently, making them sweeter. Try it."

Killian plucked the cherry off his napkin, where he'd set it thinking it was merely decoration. As soon as he popped it into his mouth, his eyes lit up a second time.

He apparently liked it so much that he reached over and, like the pirate he was, swiped the cherry from Emma's dish. "Uh oh," Henry snickered. "You're in trouble now. That's her favorite part!"

Killian's eyes shot to Emma before looking back at Henry. "She was eating around it."

"She saves it for last."

Emma barely heard their little back-and-forth. The second her cherry had disappeared from her sundae dish, she'd decided to try something unlike anything she'd tried so far that morning. As such, she needed her concentration, and she'd managed to tune out most of the sounds around her.

She focused inward instead, focused on calling her magic to the surface. She felt it brewing, felt it growing, and when it was just right, she grinned. Once again using a snap of her fingers as a flourish, she watched as a brand-new cherry appeared in her ice cream dish.

"Whoa," Henry murmured. Killian looked shocked for a moment but then a proud smile curled on his lips.

Emma felt her own sense of pride whirling through her. She'd totally made something appear out of nothing! Granted, it was only a cherry for her ice cream sundae, but it was still something that she'd pretty much wished into existence.

Kick. Ass.

She picked the cherry up by the stem and twirled it, looking her cherry thief of a pirate right in the eye. "No harm, no foul," she said before popping the fruit into her mouth and giving Killian a satisfied smile.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** I cannot get over how awesome you all consistently are. Thanks for being such great readers, and thanks for following along on this little wacky hijinky family bonding Captain Swan tale. (How many other categories can I fit in there? ;)) I hope you've had as much fun with this story as I have!

* * *

Ice cream was clearly going to become Killian's newest little obsession, so much so that Emma had to actively talk him out of ordering a second sundae. Not one to go down without a fight, he gave her the second best rendition of Puppy Dog Eyes she'd ever seen. (Henry's remained the first.)

"Why can't we get seconds?" he asked through an actual pout.

"You'll spoil your lunch," Emma replied, her tone making it clear that the subject was closed.

Henry snorted in amusement. "Uh oh, Killian. She just broke out the mom voice on you."

"This 'mom voice' doesn't scare me, lad," the pirate teased. Emma simply arched an eyebrow at him in response. _That_ made him gulp. "That no-nonsense look in your mother's eyes, however … that does."

Emma smiled to herself while giving Killian a curt nod. Damn right he should fear her no-nonsense look.

After their to-go order was delivered and everything was paid for, the three of them piled back into Emma's Bug for the return to the apartment. "Thanks for the ice cream, Mom," Henry said as he buckled his seat belt.

"Yes, love, thank you for the ice cream," Killian added as Emma buckled her own seat belt and turned the key in the ignition. "I had no idea such a delectable dessert existed."

"Seriously?" Emma turned an incredulous look on the pirate. "It's just ice cream."

"It's not 'just' anything, darling. It's ambrosia."

Emma heard Henry stifle a snicker. When she arched an eyebrow at her pirate, he winked at her. She stifled her own snicker; it seemed Killian was playing up of his new-found attachment to ice cream, probably just to drive her crazy. Sighing, she piloted the car into the flow of traffic. "In that case, you're both welcome. Just remember, not a word of it to Snow or David."

Henry made a zipping motion across his lips. After a beat, Killian teasingly did the same.

Emma bit her lower lip to hide her amused grin. The man was impossible.

The ride back to the apartment was quiet, so quiet in fact that Emma could hear Henry's stomach rumbling from the back seat. She should have known that one ice cream sundae was not at all enough to spoil a twelve-year-old boy's appetite for lunch. The delicious aroma of the food wafting through the car didn't help; one ice cream sundae was enough to spoil her appetite, but her stomach was growling as well.

Soon enough, Emma pulled into her parking space and everyone once again climbed out of the car. As she led the way into the building and up the staircase to the apartment, she hoped against hope that her brother had indeed calmed down for her poor parents.

The absence of baby screams as Emma approached the door made her let out a breath of relief. She turned her key in the deadbolt and pushed the door open slowly. The last thing she needed was to wake the little squirt up again.

All her careful entrance was for naught; her baby brother was awake and apparently as hungry as the rest of the family. He was settled in David's arms and in the midst of hungrily sucking down a bottle. Snow was moving around the kitchen, pulling plates and glasses down from the cabinet to set the table for the family's meal.

"We're back," Emma said a little unnecessarily as she pushed the door open fully and stepped over the threshold.

David looked up and smiled at his returning family members. Snow grinned a welcome as well, stepping forward to greet them. "Oh, that smells so good," she said as she took the takeout bag from Emma's hand. "Thank you for picking this up."

"You must be hungry, Gramma," Henry chuckled. "It smells like French fries."

"Hey, don't knock the smell of French fries, kid," Emma laughed, nudging her son's shoulder.

"I'm not, believe me."

And she did. Food was serious business to a twelve-year-old boy.

She shrugged off her jacket only to have Killian slip it from her hand to hang it up for her. She smiled at him and then refocused her attention on her mother. The slump of Snow's shoulders told Emma that she was exhausted and that even the simple act of setting the table required more energy than she really had at the moment.

Emma remembered that exhaustion, that bone-weariness of caring for a newborn. She didn't actually experience it, but she remembered it. That fact made her brain hurt, by the way. Still the sympathy for her exhausted parents caused an ache in her chest and made her feel a need to help them in any way she could. "You don't have to set the table, you know," she said to Snow. "We can do it."

"Nonsense, Emma, the three of you just brought back lunch. Setting the table is no trouble."

All right, apparently Emma needed to make it clearer than she wasn't giving her mother the choice. "It's no trouble for me, either."

With a wave of Emma's hand, the dishes disappeared from the counter and reappeared on the table, one in each place. A second wave of her hand distributed the glasses in the exact same fashion. A shroud of tiredness had descended on her during the poofing of the glasses but she tried not to let it show. The rest of the utensils and napkins were going to have to go on the table the old-fashioned way, it seemed. "Now," she said, smiling smugly at her parents, "who wants what to drink?"

Henry grinned as he began setting out the food now that the dishes were in place. Killian rested his hand on the small of Emma's back and met her gaze, silently asking if she was all right. She nodded at him with a small smile, letting him know when she was fine.

She could tell that he didn't quite believe her but he took her at her silent word and, after smiling back at her, stepped over to the table to help Henry distribute the food and get the drinks poured. Emma tried to step forward to help them but the tiredness demanded she stay still a moment or two longer.

Snow and David exchanged a glance. Emma still hadn't been figured out their silent language but they must have decided something together because David stood and set a sleepy Neal, now with a full belly, back in the bassinet, which they'd shifted over to the kitchen table. Then he and Snow approached their baby girl at the same time.

Their actions couldn't have been any more synchronized if they'd choreographed it. They both wrapped Emma in a hug. "Thank you for taking care of us," David murmured softly, "but it's our job to take care of you, too."

At first, Emma was surprised by the contact but her father's words stirred something deep within her, something she hadn't felt in a long time, something she'd given up hope she would ever have. She had people to take care of her now. She relaxed into the embrace, squeezing her parents back as if she were a little girl holding onto mommy and daddy.

"We love you, sweetheart," Snow whispered into her ear.

Emma had waited so long to hear those words, so long for those words to actually mean something. And now that she had them, she did not want to let them go. She tightened her arms around her parents and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that had leaped into her eyes. "I love you, too," she whispered back.

And she did. She really, really did.

They stood in the hug a moment longer before Emma pulled away, remembering that Killian and Henry were still in the room. Snow and David – no, _Mom and Dad_ – smiled at her, and David ran his thumb along her cheek. "Let's eat, hmm?"

Emma smiled back gratefully as she nodded her agreement. The three of them separated then, Snow sitting down at the table and David grabbing the napkins to distribute. As soon as her parents were seated, Killian stepped up to her, once again placing his hand on the small of her back. "You all right, love?"

Oh, she was totally all right. So all right and high on emotion and full of happiness that she raised herself on her toes and pressed her lips against her pirate's. He stiffened in surprise, just as she knew she'd done when her parents had wrapped her in that hug, but just as she'd relaxed into the hug, he soon relaxed into the kiss. He pressed his lips back against hers and brought his hand up to run his fingers through her hair.

He was the one who pulled away this time, keenly aware of her parents and son sitting at the table and most probably watching them. She grinned at him and finally answered his question as to her well-being with one of her own. "What do you think?"

Killian smirked at her. "I guess you're doing all right."

Damn straight she was. At the confirmation that she was okay, Killian crossed the room to the table, sat down, and teased Henry about stealing all the spilled fries at the bottom of the takeout bag before anyone could say anything about that very public display of affection.

Emma hung back for a moment and just watched them. Her son, her mom and dad, her baby brother, her pirate-turned-hero. David still had a fatherly glare turned on Killian, probably due to the kiss, but Killian didn't seem to be worried about it at all. Instead, he played right back with him, giving him little smirks every now and again. Neal was sleeping comfortably in the bassinet, Henry was beaming, surrounded by the love and comfort, and Snow was taking it all in from her spot at the table as well.

Warmth began to flow through Emma, warmth not caused by magic.

_Or maybe this warmth does come from magic_, Emma thought. Not her internal magic but a different kind of magic, the kind that came from being surrounded by the people one loved and the kind that came from finally finding one's place in the world. The kind of magic that came from finally finding the place Emma could truly call home and the people she could truly call family.


End file.
